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The Property Rights Report
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Congressional Gift-Giving: Rattlesnakes and Grizzly Bears That Bite
December 2024
Congressional Gift-Giving: Rattlesnakes and Grizzly Bears That Bite
While the policy wonks and talking heads have been chattering about DOGE and how fiscal utopia is right around the corner, Congress has been busy preparing to go in the opposite direction.
Each year, members prepare their wish lists for what is termed the federal lands omnibus bill. This is a collection of wilderness and wild and scenic river designations, monuments, and appropriations to purchase private properties, trails, and parks.
Santa’s federal sleigh is loaded with concessions to their environmental constituents and in the dead of night, usually just before members board their flights home on Christmas Eve, a voice vote is called in the respective chamber and, without objection, tens of thousands of acres are taken out of production.
By removing these lands from production, tax revenues are reduced, economic activity is diminished, and federal management costs are increased. Rarely do any of these pieces of legislation get the close scrutiny of a committee hearing. This is all done while the public gathers to celebrate the holidays, little knowing that the Congressional Grinch is busy stealing their futures without one thought for fiscal responsibility.
Wish List for the Trump Administration
Land use activists hope the Trump administration will:
Private Property Synonymous with Pursuit of Happiness
Private property has always under common law been synonymous with the pursuit of happiness. Private property provides for personal security, personal freedom, and independence in economic life. All of these are attributes that allow individuals alternatives in order to pursue happiness. The ownership of land and the right to exclude is under attack in our country and tears at the fabric of a free society. Case in point: a Colorado woman’s fight against her county which claimed adverse possession to seize her backyard for public use. ‘We’re gonna fight’: Colorado woman says she went ‘to war’ when county tried to claim her private property | Fox News
BLM Shuts Down Leasable Coal in Powder River Basin
The Bureau of Land Management issued protest resolution and Record of Decision shutting down the entire powder river basin which consists of 80% of subsurface coal estate administered by BLM in the Nation. BLM Outlaws Coal In Powder River Basin; Gordon Says Prepare For A Fight | Cowboy State Daily
Another Warning Delivered on Green Energy Transmission Corridors
The Discovery Institute in Seattle issued a report in September on the crippling costs of net zero policies. Findings include that it will require 25,000 square miles of land to build out the solar, wind storage required to be net zero. The land area of both Oregon and Washington east of the Cascades is roughly 100,000 square miles. "Thus, about 25% of the entire area east of the Cascades would be needed if the wind and solar capacity could be co-located and roughly 35% of the area if they could not." (Pg. 26).
The cost of the net zero transition will be $550 billion by 2050, which is more than six times greater than a natural gas to nuclear transition. (Pg. 28) The average residential customer bill will increase from $100/month today to over $700/month in 2060. For commercial customers, the average bill will go from $600/month to $3,800/month. (Pg. 32).
Climate Groups Reap Last-Minute Bonanza from Biden Administration
The Biden administration has apparently given the EPA billions of dollars to be used as the agency sees fit. In anticipation of the Trump administration turning off the money hydrant, the EPA is giving billions to non-profit groups to pursue the goals of Climate Change Hysteria.
Brent Efron, Special Advisor for Implementation, EPA said:
News Round-Up
December 2024
Congressional Gift-Giving: Rattlesnakes and Grizzly Bears That Bite
While the policy wonks and talking heads have been chattering about DOGE and how fiscal utopia is right around the corner, Congress has been busy preparing to go in the opposite direction.
Each year, members prepare their wish lists for what is termed the federal lands omnibus bill. This is a collection of wilderness and wild and scenic river designations, monuments, and appropriations to purchase private properties, trails, and parks.
Santa’s federal sleigh is loaded with concessions to their environmental constituents and in the dead of night, usually just before members board their flights home on Christmas Eve, a voice vote is called in the respective chamber and, without objection, tens of thousands of acres are taken out of production.
- Each acre placed in wilderness, wild and scenic river, or monument comes with additional layers of protections that remove those lands from production of natural resources;
- Every private acre purchased takes that land out of the market and drives up housing costs;
- Every acre converted from private to federal ownership increases the management costs of federal agencies that currently don’t have enough money to manage what they already have;
- Every private acre converted to federal control terminates the productivity from that land and the tax revenue to the federal, state, and local governments;
By removing these lands from production, tax revenues are reduced, economic activity is diminished, and federal management costs are increased. Rarely do any of these pieces of legislation get the close scrutiny of a committee hearing. This is all done while the public gathers to celebrate the holidays, little knowing that the Congressional Grinch is busy stealing their futures without one thought for fiscal responsibility.
Wish List for the Trump Administration
Land use activists hope the Trump administration will:
- stop federal overreach by reissuing the 2016 Executive Order promoting local control over land use issues
- appoint officials more attuned to economic growth than climate craziness
- Nevada ranchers and farmers expect friendlier treatment from new Trump administration on grazing, irrigation, and other land use issues
- delist the gray wolf as an endangered species
- stop the Bureau of Land Management’s sweeping Old Growth rule
- douse the firebugs at the U.S. Forest Service who love deliberately setting fires, crazy as it sounds
- abandon land-devouring green energy transmission corridors
- reverse Biden policies on climate, federal land acquisition, 30 x 30, etc.
- stop national monument abuse which has led to ‘monuments’ the size of Rhode Island
Private Property Synonymous with Pursuit of Happiness
Private property has always under common law been synonymous with the pursuit of happiness. Private property provides for personal security, personal freedom, and independence in economic life. All of these are attributes that allow individuals alternatives in order to pursue happiness. The ownership of land and the right to exclude is under attack in our country and tears at the fabric of a free society. Case in point: a Colorado woman’s fight against her county which claimed adverse possession to seize her backyard for public use. ‘We’re gonna fight’: Colorado woman says she went ‘to war’ when county tried to claim her private property | Fox News
- "The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence." - John Adams, A Defense of the American Constitutions, 1787
BLM Shuts Down Leasable Coal in Powder River Basin
The Bureau of Land Management issued protest resolution and Record of Decision shutting down the entire powder river basin which consists of 80% of subsurface coal estate administered by BLM in the Nation. BLM Outlaws Coal In Powder River Basin; Gordon Says Prepare For A Fight | Cowboy State Daily
Another Warning Delivered on Green Energy Transmission Corridors
The Discovery Institute in Seattle issued a report in September on the crippling costs of net zero policies. Findings include that it will require 25,000 square miles of land to build out the solar, wind storage required to be net zero. The land area of both Oregon and Washington east of the Cascades is roughly 100,000 square miles. "Thus, about 25% of the entire area east of the Cascades would be needed if the wind and solar capacity could be co-located and roughly 35% of the area if they could not." (Pg. 26).
The cost of the net zero transition will be $550 billion by 2050, which is more than six times greater than a natural gas to nuclear transition. (Pg. 28) The average residential customer bill will increase from $100/month today to over $700/month in 2060. For commercial customers, the average bill will go from $600/month to $3,800/month. (Pg. 32).
Climate Groups Reap Last-Minute Bonanza from Biden Administration
The Biden administration has apparently given the EPA billions of dollars to be used as the agency sees fit. In anticipation of the Trump administration turning off the money hydrant, the EPA is giving billions to non-profit groups to pursue the goals of Climate Change Hysteria.
Brent Efron, Special Advisor for Implementation, EPA said:
- “Now it’s how to get the money out as fast as possible before they [Trump Administration] come in ... it’s like we’re on the Titanic and we’re throwing gold bars off the edge.”
- “Over the last year we’ve given out $50 billion dollars for climate things…so to go work for one of these places would be really cool.”
- “We gave them [nonprofits] the money because… it was an insurance policy against Trump winning. Because they aren’t [a government agency], they’re safer from Republicans taking the money away.”
News Round-Up
- Colorado better off waiting for Trump and not giving in to Biden administration demands on Colorado River allocations
- More federal land grabs: the 11 million acres the Biden administration ‘conserved’ in 2024 seen as a step toward the radical Rewilding Program announced in the ‘90s
- Despite Joe Biden’s claims the world is chopping down forests at an alarming rate, most regions of the world are experiencing positive or small-to-no changes in forest area, and worldwide tree cover increased 7.1 percent from 1982-2016.
- The Democrat-controlled Virginia legislature is contemplating a new state entity to overcome local resistance to solar farms
- Harriet Hageman (R-WY) introduces legislation to repeal the SUSTAINS Act which allows private donors to fund federal conservation programs and “own” the environmental service benefits
- The new TV series ‘Landman’ tells the truth about fossil fuels making "our cars and our lives and our planes and everything in our modern world go."