Energy Bill's Hidden Tribal Forest Management & Other Provisions

Canada Free Press ^ | 09/15/16 | Lawrence Kogan

[Sean_Anthony]

Diminish Private Property Rights

This article is based on a recently prepared memorandum of law and correspondences dispatched to 13 members of Congress explaining the unconstitutionality of the pending legislation discussed below.

Energy and forest management are not generally assumed to be interrelated policies. Nevertheless, U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (AK-R) is pushing a massive 792-page Senate Energy bill incorporating more than 393 amendments covering these and other policy areas which many in Congress have not likely read. The bill is No. S.2012 - the North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act of 2016, which, according to nonprofit Western States Constitutional Rights, LLC, contains VERY harmful tribal government forest management provisions that could severely diminish the constitutionally protected rights of private property owners throughout the United States.

[LegendHasIt]

The assaults on private property rights never cease in Washington D.C.

[W.]

These idiot politicians keep puking up the most absolutely insane dreck and making it into laws that they then immediately exempt themselves from. What’s wrong with that picture?

[Ray76]

This came up before as Senate Bill 3014 “Tribal Forestry Participation and Protection Act of 2016”. A quick review shows that the same language is in this bill.

The concern stems from Section 702 of S.2012 (as well as Section 3 of S.3014). Both amend 25 U.S.C. § 3104 Management of Indian forest land, expanding the land covered from:

“’Indian forest land’ means Indian lands, including commercial and non-commercial timberland and woodland, that are considered chiefly valuable for the production of forest products or to maintain watershed or other land values enhanced by a forest cover”

“’Indian land’ means land title to which is held by— (A) the United States in trust for an Indian, an individual of Indian or Alaska Native ancestry who is not a member of a federally-recognized Indian tribe, or an Indian tribe, or (B) an Indian, an individual of Indian or Alaska Native ancestry who is not a member of a federally recognized tribe, or an Indian tribe subject to a restriction by the United States against alienation;

to also include:

“public lands (as defined in section 103 of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1702))”

43 U.S.C. 1702 reads: “The term ‘public lands’ means any land and interest in land owned by the United States within the several States and administered by the Secretary of the Interior through the Bureau of Land Management, without regard to how the United States acquired ownership, except— (1) lands located on the Outer Continental Shelf; and (2) lands held for the benefit of Indians, Aleuts, and Eskimos.”