The Property Rights Report
- No person shall be ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. (Fifth Amendment - U.S. Constitution)
- A Team Effort by Property Rights Activists Throughout the U.S.
May 16, 2023 - PERMALINK
Who Will Represent the Liberty Of Our Posterity?
- Youth climate suit in Montana fails to account for inflation, product shortages, and the other social costs of climate mania
by Nathan Descheemaeker
Originally Published at Dr. Dan Eichenbaum’s Freedom Forum Radio
In response to the youths bringing climate change litigation in the case of Held v. The State of Montana, it is necessary to bring the flip side of the coin regarding the youth in the State of Montana and the issues they will face in their future. I’m not talking about fires, drought, or severe weather which man has always encountered and endured. I’m talking about the significant impacts that are and will continue as a result of the whole of government, the whole of the economy, and executive climate policy objectives which has transformative effects on the economic and political process which threatens the future generations’ capacity for self-government guaranteed in the state constitution.
As for ranchers, farmers, and other resource producers who provide the fundamental goods and services taken for granted within the quiet comfort of a suburban home, we face many uncertainties, unpredictable weather, unpredictable breakdowns, etc. One thing that is predictable is that if the direction of law and government towards despotic and arbitrary rule remains unchecked the last vestiges of liberty of one’s person and one’s property, the right to enlightened self-government upon an objective base will be impossible. If the means of production (capital) is no longer aggregated among many individuals employing themselves independently in the market, the inevitable result is a consolidation of the means of production which history shows us the state becomes the sole employer and the old saying “he who does not work does not eat,” changes to “he who does not obey does not eat.”
The state in the form of the Judiciary, the Legislature, or the executive which seeks to control and dictate economic activity poses a far greater threat to the liberties of the individual, without which a clean and healthful environment becomes a moot point. It is by the separate government branches playing their The Social Cost of Climate Mania limited the enumerated role to preserve the life, liberty, and property of the individual, which accomplishes the purpose for which governments are instituted among men. The late Justice Scalia said, “As a practical matter, he who controls my economic destiny controls much more of my life as well.”
In order to enjoy self-government, one needs legal protections of private property rights and stable regulatory frameworks enabling private investment in our natural resource industries which our laws have always, and rightfully so, provided for. But this is what these climate justice youth are seeking to upend, claiming the state’s legislative policy allowing responsible fossil fuel development violates their constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. These are highly conjectural claims being propagated, seeking the solution by asking the courts to disregard legislative prerogatives and robbing the consumer of his choice by prescribing what economic activity is allowed based on the grievance of a group of youths.
If people believe that hamstringing our fossil fuel industries will mean that fires will cease, and severe weather will subside, they will be woefully disillusioned. These phenomena happened to a lesser or greater extent before industrialized civilizations existed, and if the redistributors succeed in dismantling industrialized civilization the fires will persist as they did before, and as data from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) below shows, they may persist to a greater extent than today.
Who Will Represent the Liberty Of Our Posterity?
- Youth climate suit in Montana fails to account for inflation, product shortages, and the other social costs of climate mania
by Nathan Descheemaeker
Originally Published at Dr. Dan Eichenbaum’s Freedom Forum Radio
In response to the youths bringing climate change litigation in the case of Held v. The State of Montana, it is necessary to bring the flip side of the coin regarding the youth in the State of Montana and the issues they will face in their future. I’m not talking about fires, drought, or severe weather which man has always encountered and endured. I’m talking about the significant impacts that are and will continue as a result of the whole of government, the whole of the economy, and executive climate policy objectives which has transformative effects on the economic and political process which threatens the future generations’ capacity for self-government guaranteed in the state constitution.
As for ranchers, farmers, and other resource producers who provide the fundamental goods and services taken for granted within the quiet comfort of a suburban home, we face many uncertainties, unpredictable weather, unpredictable breakdowns, etc. One thing that is predictable is that if the direction of law and government towards despotic and arbitrary rule remains unchecked the last vestiges of liberty of one’s person and one’s property, the right to enlightened self-government upon an objective base will be impossible. If the means of production (capital) is no longer aggregated among many individuals employing themselves independently in the market, the inevitable result is a consolidation of the means of production which history shows us the state becomes the sole employer and the old saying “he who does not work does not eat,” changes to “he who does not obey does not eat.”
- If the owner may do with his property only that which is prescribed to him, what directs the national economic activity is not property but that prescribing power. . . This merely means that a given condition of social production is to be preserved, even though it would vanish under private property.
Mises, 1922
The state in the form of the Judiciary, the Legislature, or the executive which seeks to control and dictate economic activity poses a far greater threat to the liberties of the individual, without which a clean and healthful environment becomes a moot point. It is by the separate government branches playing their The Social Cost of Climate Mania limited the enumerated role to preserve the life, liberty, and property of the individual, which accomplishes the purpose for which governments are instituted among men. The late Justice Scalia said, “As a practical matter, he who controls my economic destiny controls much more of my life as well.”
- I know no society, today or in any era of history, in which high degrees of intellectual and political freedom have flourished side by side with a high degree of state control over the relevant citizen’s economic life. The free market, which presupposes relatively broad economic freedom, has historically been the cradle of broad political freedom, and in modern times the demise of economic freedom has been the grave of political freedom as well.
Scalia, p.180, Economic Affairs as Human Affairs
In order to enjoy self-government, one needs legal protections of private property rights and stable regulatory frameworks enabling private investment in our natural resource industries which our laws have always, and rightfully so, provided for. But this is what these climate justice youth are seeking to upend, claiming the state’s legislative policy allowing responsible fossil fuel development violates their constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. These are highly conjectural claims being propagated, seeking the solution by asking the courts to disregard legislative prerogatives and robbing the consumer of his choice by prescribing what economic activity is allowed based on the grievance of a group of youths.
If people believe that hamstringing our fossil fuel industries will mean that fires will cease, and severe weather will subside, they will be woefully disillusioned. These phenomena happened to a lesser or greater extent before industrialized civilizations existed, and if the redistributors succeed in dismantling industrialized civilization the fires will persist as they did before, and as data from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) below shows, they may persist to a greater extent than today.
The Climate change litigation brought by these kids arguing for the right to a clean and healthful environment as justification to eradicate our carbon-based industries will find they are ripping the material foundation from under their feet which alone provides the leisure to enjoy a clean and healthful environment. Forget a clean and healthful environment. No one will have the leisure to enjoy such things when all their time and energy goes to trying to survive in a place of subsistence living. This is plainly evident in many countries where private property and private investment in natural resources accompanied by self-government are lacking. There you will find the environment suffers, as do the people who live in such a system.
So, what about all the other young people in the state of Montana who are guaranteed in the Montana Constitution to a system of self-government that directly implies a free-market economy that many of our counties have policies to foster in order to secure self-determination? The Doctrine of in Para Materia requires that a body of law be looked at in its entirety. Justice Frankfurter once said, “Statutes cannot be read intelligently, while the eye is closed to affiliated statutes.” You cannot use one instrument of the constitution to eradicate another instrument of the constitution without dismantling the structure to the ruin of public liberty.
With this said the youth in this state have far greater standing regarding the damages resulting from the failure of the executive branch to accurately assess the true cost of government policies associated with climate policy objectives. This along with the out-of-control government spending, subsidizing favored industries to benefit from green projects, has extensive impacts on the market. Nicolai Tangen, chief executive of the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund explained that “companies benefitting from economically ineffective and inefficient projects through applying for green subsidies has fundamentally flipped free-market principles on their head, an arrangement that is sure to invite economic chaos.”
This kind of coercive influence in the markets is a gross obstruction of the otherwise broad economic freedom which has always served as a basis for broad political freedom necessary for the republican form of government guaranteed to the States in Article IV of the U.S. Constitution. The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia noted in a speech at the Cato Institute conference on Economic Liberties and The Judiciary in 1984:
It has become evident that the court has not ensured that the executive does not impose any constraints upon economic activity without express delegation. The timetables and targets expressed in numerical terms for decarbonization and the associated international commitments have not been approved by representatives accountable to the electorate, and are currently impacting individual citizens, homes, businesses and governments with the inflationary result of pumping dollars into the economy while regulating the material conversion of resources for consumption, creating high demand and too little commodity driving up costs across the board. And all this is being done on purpose to target and destroy traditional industries which have consistently provided stable rates and reliable energy to ratepayers and consumers. Reliability of energy and other necessary goods and services are becoming a thing of the past and culminates in what could be called a regulatory taking of the entire country.
The lack of disclosure on the part of the federal government relating to the implications of accomplishing such goals as Net-Zero by 2050 with the extensive international guidelines to be followed is in violation of the primary intent of the rule of law and due process which employ the essentials of public scrutiny, without which the individual citizen is left exposed to unrestrained power. Where else would the injunction of the judiciary be more important than the preservation of fundamental principles as enumerated by compact in the Federal and State Constitutions and the Declaration of Independence from which they stand? Preserving the structure of our system is the most pertinent importance for preserving the rights of persons.
If the Executive cannot prove without a reasonable doubt that the current inflation, supply chain shortages and other impacts are not in part a result of non-delegated executive policy and rules touching vast sectors of the economy (whole of government, whole of economy EO 14008) resulting in transformative effects on the political process and social relations, the individual citizen proves damage to his property and well-being as a result of unconstitutional process.
_____________________________________________
About the author
Nathan Descheemaeker and his family raise registered feeder calves in Montana, and he is a Senior Research Specialist and Policy Analyst specializing in federal and local government administrative procedures, land and natural resource policymaking, and local governmental relations.
So, what about all the other young people in the state of Montana who are guaranteed in the Montana Constitution to a system of self-government that directly implies a free-market economy that many of our counties have policies to foster in order to secure self-determination? The Doctrine of in Para Materia requires that a body of law be looked at in its entirety. Justice Frankfurter once said, “Statutes cannot be read intelligently, while the eye is closed to affiliated statutes.” You cannot use one instrument of the constitution to eradicate another instrument of the constitution without dismantling the structure to the ruin of public liberty.
With this said the youth in this state have far greater standing regarding the damages resulting from the failure of the executive branch to accurately assess the true cost of government policies associated with climate policy objectives. This along with the out-of-control government spending, subsidizing favored industries to benefit from green projects, has extensive impacts on the market. Nicolai Tangen, chief executive of the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund explained that “companies benefitting from economically ineffective and inefficient projects through applying for green subsidies has fundamentally flipped free-market principles on their head, an arrangement that is sure to invite economic chaos.”
This kind of coercive influence in the markets is a gross obstruction of the otherwise broad economic freedom which has always served as a basis for broad political freedom necessary for the republican form of government guaranteed to the States in Article IV of the U.S. Constitution. The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia noted in a speech at the Cato Institute conference on Economic Liberties and The Judiciary in 1984:
- We (the court) will ensure that the executive does not impose any constraints upon economic activity which Congress has not authorized; and that where constraints are authorized the executive follows statutorily prescribed procedures and that the executive (and much more rarely, Congress in its prescriptions) follows constitutionally required procedures.
It has become evident that the court has not ensured that the executive does not impose any constraints upon economic activity without express delegation. The timetables and targets expressed in numerical terms for decarbonization and the associated international commitments have not been approved by representatives accountable to the electorate, and are currently impacting individual citizens, homes, businesses and governments with the inflationary result of pumping dollars into the economy while regulating the material conversion of resources for consumption, creating high demand and too little commodity driving up costs across the board. And all this is being done on purpose to target and destroy traditional industries which have consistently provided stable rates and reliable energy to ratepayers and consumers. Reliability of energy and other necessary goods and services are becoming a thing of the past and culminates in what could be called a regulatory taking of the entire country.
The lack of disclosure on the part of the federal government relating to the implications of accomplishing such goals as Net-Zero by 2050 with the extensive international guidelines to be followed is in violation of the primary intent of the rule of law and due process which employ the essentials of public scrutiny, without which the individual citizen is left exposed to unrestrained power. Where else would the injunction of the judiciary be more important than the preservation of fundamental principles as enumerated by compact in the Federal and State Constitutions and the Declaration of Independence from which they stand? Preserving the structure of our system is the most pertinent importance for preserving the rights of persons.
If the Executive cannot prove without a reasonable doubt that the current inflation, supply chain shortages and other impacts are not in part a result of non-delegated executive policy and rules touching vast sectors of the economy (whole of government, whole of economy EO 14008) resulting in transformative effects on the political process and social relations, the individual citizen proves damage to his property and well-being as a result of unconstitutional process.
_____________________________________________
About the author
Nathan Descheemaeker and his family raise registered feeder calves in Montana, and he is a Senior Research Specialist and Policy Analyst specializing in federal and local government administrative procedures, land and natural resource policymaking, and local governmental relations.
April 20, 2023 - PERMALINK
Earth Day: Where Is Nostradamus When You Need Him?
Climate change believers will celebrate Earth Day on April 22, 2023. How they could still believe in the climate change hoax after so many laughable failed predictions of climate doom is beyond comprehension. Here are just a few:
The parallels to Nostradamus are striking. The medieval soothsayer’s “predictions are characteristically vague, meaning they could be applied to virtually anything... Most ... deal with disasters, such as plagues, earthquakes, wars, floods, invasions, murders, droughts, and battles—all undated.... All of this is presented in the context of the supposedly imminent end of the world...., a conviction that sparked numerous collections of end-time prophecies....
The Nostradamuses of Today
From Dan Eichenbaum, The Crystal Ball of Climatology (4/14/23)
Humans have been obsessed with telling the future since the beginning of time. Sometimes used to find answers to perplexing questions, predictions of future events were more often sought to secure advantage over opponents and for personal gain. Ancient peoples believed that natural events, reading the entrails of man and animals, and devices of chance such as dice and casting lots were a reliable harbinger of future outcomes....
In current times, combining computer data analysis with the study of statistics has given a façade of respectable science to predicting the future....
Man-made greenhouse gases, therefore, make up only 0.3% of overall atmospheric greenhouse gases, hardly a large enough percentage to have any significant effect on overall temperature....
The Church of Climate Change now controls funding for bureaucrats, educators, and climatologists involved in the computer modeling process and the media that disseminates the outrageously false predictions and remedies to satisfy their agenda of one world collectivism. The tragedy is that we are being asked to sacrifice our economy, lifestyle, and our individual freedom right now based on predictions that will most likely be proven false long after our deaths. The pseudo-scientists who created the models, also having passed away, will not be held accountable for their counterfeit prophesies. Unfortunately, it is the future generations of Americans who will suffer and perish.
Resist Tyranny and Trust in Freedom.
The Crystal Ball is Cracked
Climate models routinely wrongly predict more warming than actually occurs. From Ross McKitrick
Since the 1990s the records from both weather satellites and weather balloons have shown that climate models predict too much warming. In a 2020 paper, John Christy of the University of Alabama-Huntsville (UAH) and I examined the outputs of the 38 newest climate models and compared their global tropospheric warming rates over 1979 to 2014 against observations from satellites and weather balloons. All 38 exhibited too much warming, and in most cases the differences were statistically significant. We argued that this points to a structural error in climate models where they respond too strongly to GHGs.
They had 38 chances to get this right - how many more do they need?
Predict This!
There was a 20-year pause in the rise of the global mean surface temperature of the earth ending in 2019 that the climate change crowd can’t explain. Now we’re in a New Pause. So when will the new pause end so we can get down to the serious business of controlling everyone’s lives?
Happy Earth Day!
- enjoy it while you can, not many left!
Earth Day: Where Is Nostradamus When You Need Him?
Climate change believers will celebrate Earth Day on April 22, 2023. How they could still believe in the climate change hoax after so many laughable failed predictions of climate doom is beyond comprehension. Here are just a few:
- 1989: The United Nations predicted entire nations would be wiped off the face of the earth if global warming was not stopped by the year 2000
- 1989: New York City’s West Side Highway Underwater by 2019 (it’s not)
- 2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is
- 2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy
- 2008: Climate Genius Al Gore Predicts Ice-Free Arctic by 2013
- 2020: Climate wunderkind Greta Thunberg confidently declares there are only 8 years left to prevent severe warming of the planet. Do tell.
- More failed predictions can be found here, here, and here
The parallels to Nostradamus are striking. The medieval soothsayer’s “predictions are characteristically vague, meaning they could be applied to virtually anything... Most ... deal with disasters, such as plagues, earthquakes, wars, floods, invasions, murders, droughts, and battles—all undated.... All of this is presented in the context of the supposedly imminent end of the world...., a conviction that sparked numerous collections of end-time prophecies....
The Nostradamuses of Today
From Dan Eichenbaum, The Crystal Ball of Climatology (4/14/23)
Humans have been obsessed with telling the future since the beginning of time. Sometimes used to find answers to perplexing questions, predictions of future events were more often sought to secure advantage over opponents and for personal gain. Ancient peoples believed that natural events, reading the entrails of man and animals, and devices of chance such as dice and casting lots were a reliable harbinger of future outcomes....
In current times, combining computer data analysis with the study of statistics has given a façade of respectable science to predicting the future....
Man-made greenhouse gases, therefore, make up only 0.3% of overall atmospheric greenhouse gases, hardly a large enough percentage to have any significant effect on overall temperature....
The Church of Climate Change now controls funding for bureaucrats, educators, and climatologists involved in the computer modeling process and the media that disseminates the outrageously false predictions and remedies to satisfy their agenda of one world collectivism. The tragedy is that we are being asked to sacrifice our economy, lifestyle, and our individual freedom right now based on predictions that will most likely be proven false long after our deaths. The pseudo-scientists who created the models, also having passed away, will not be held accountable for their counterfeit prophesies. Unfortunately, it is the future generations of Americans who will suffer and perish.
Resist Tyranny and Trust in Freedom.
The Crystal Ball is Cracked
Climate models routinely wrongly predict more warming than actually occurs. From Ross McKitrick
Since the 1990s the records from both weather satellites and weather balloons have shown that climate models predict too much warming. In a 2020 paper, John Christy of the University of Alabama-Huntsville (UAH) and I examined the outputs of the 38 newest climate models and compared their global tropospheric warming rates over 1979 to 2014 against observations from satellites and weather balloons. All 38 exhibited too much warming, and in most cases the differences were statistically significant. We argued that this points to a structural error in climate models where they respond too strongly to GHGs.
They had 38 chances to get this right - how many more do they need?
Predict This!
There was a 20-year pause in the rise of the global mean surface temperature of the earth ending in 2019 that the climate change crowd can’t explain. Now we’re in a New Pause. So when will the new pause end so we can get down to the serious business of controlling everyone’s lives?
Happy Earth Day!
- enjoy it while you can, not many left!
April 10, 2023 - PERMALINK
Biden’s Avi Kwa Ame Monument Designation Ignores Serious Concerns
The Governor of Nevada criticized Joe Biden for locking up minerals in the creation of a new national monument in the state. Land rights activists in western states have warned for years about locking up militarily-important rare earth minerals in monuments and the increasing dependence on China it means. But Biden did not consider these national security issues in making this new designation.
Nevada Governor’s Statement
Governor Joe Lombardo issued a statement:
“The federal confiscation of 506,814 acres of Nevada land is a historic mistake that will cost Nevadans for generations to come.”
House Energy Bill Recognizes Importance of Critical Minerals
- From protecting Indian ruins to locking up and shutting down America’s essential energy, economic, and military natural resources
The 1906 Antiquities Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt on June 8, 1906. It authorized the president to set aside federal lands as a national monument to protect historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest, and may reserve parcels of land, “…the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected…”
The first national monument was proclaimed by President Roosevelt - the Devil’s Tower
National Monument in Wyoming on September 24, 1906. It consisted of a mere 1,347 acres. Just enough land to provide protection for the tower and its immediate site.
But like all government programs it took on a life of its own and began to grow. The land designations became larger and larger, going far beyond the smallest size necessary to protect the site - until they regularly covered 500,000 acres, a million acres, two million acres.
The first glaringly obvious example of the Antiquities Act being used to prevent America’s natural resources from being developed and used occurred with the designation of the Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument in southern Utah on September 18, 1996.
This was a vast area, encompassing almost 2 million acres, larger than the state of Delaware, covering much of southern Utah and including the Kaiparowits Plateau, with its vast deposits of EPA-compliant coal - not just one of the largest such deposits in the world, but the single largest in the United States. An estimated 62 billion tons of coal with an estimated value of about $1 trillion.
There had been plans to develop this vast coal deposit since the late 1950s - early1960s, first by a consortium of Arizona and southern California utility companies, who proposed a vast project with a number of open pit mines and a huge coal-fired power plant. That project was eventually abandoned in 1976 because of environmental objections and costs.
But in 1991 a Dutch-owned company Angeles Resources stepped in and acquired leases and applied for permits to proceed with development, but on a much smaller scale, and with underground coal mines. BLM spent four years developing an EIS for the project and in 1995 the Andelex project was approved, totally to the delight of Utah and totally to the outrage of the national environmental movement.
In a surprise event in the heat of the 1996 election the Clinton administration gathered to announce the proclamation of a new 2 million acre national monument which would shut down the proposed mine.
On September 18th, President Clinton, VP Al Gore, and Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, all showed up to announce the designation of the new monument. And President Clinton specifically announced that he intended to stop the mine.
It’s interesting that the White House team did not make the announcement in Utah, but instead about as far away as they could safely gather, in Grand Canyon National Park on the south rim of the Grand Canyon - safe from the outraged people of Utah. Utah had overwhelmingly supported the Kaiparowits coal project, including Governor Michael Leavitt, U.S. Congressmen, including Democrat Rep. Bill Orton, the state legislature, county and local officials, and the public.
And a new and easy way to weaken America had been discovered.
Background
Biden’s Avi Kwa Ame Monument Designation Ignores Serious Concerns
The Governor of Nevada criticized Joe Biden for locking up minerals in the creation of a new national monument in the state. Land rights activists in western states have warned for years about locking up militarily-important rare earth minerals in monuments and the increasing dependence on China it means. But Biden did not consider these national security issues in making this new designation.
Nevada Governor’s Statement
Governor Joe Lombardo issued a statement:
- “Since I took office, the Biden White House has not consulted with my administration about any of the details of the proposed Avi Kwa Ame National Monument which, given the size of the proposal, seems badly out of step. Upon learning that the president was considering unilateral action, I reached out to the White House to raise several concerns, citing the potential for terminal disruption of rare earth mineral mining projects and long-planned, bipartisan economic development efforts. While I’m still waiting for a response, I’m not surprised. This kind of ‘Washington Knows Best’ policy might win plaudits from unaccountable special interests, but it’s going to cost our state jobs and economic opportunity — all while making land more expensive and more difficult to develop for affordable housing and critical infrastructure projects.
“The federal confiscation of 506,814 acres of Nevada land is a historic mistake that will cost Nevadans for generations to come.”
House Energy Bill Recognizes Importance of Critical Minerals
- H.R. 1 seeks to boost production of critical minerals such as lithium, nickel, and cobalt that are used in products such as electric vehicles, computers, and cellphones.
- experts are warning of the national security consequences of ceding rare earth mining and processing to the Chinese
- another national monument designated in Texas the same day formerly served as an Army artillery range and testing ground
- environmental impact not studied (including the effects on the community and the broader nontribal culture)
- no thought given to finding compromise or the extent to which competing claims could have been accommodated; this appears to be another abuse of the Antiquities Act to gobble up many more acres than the monument-proper needed (see ‘The Antiquities Act’ below).
- part of the area was already under federal protected habitat designation and, thus, the monument designation is overkill. It continues Washington’s propensity to layer one restrictive land use designation on top of another
- the national monument designations are part of the Biden administration’s ill-advised 30 x 30 plan to lock up 30 percent of the U.S. land mass by 2030 to fight the illusory specter of ‘climate change’
- Even a committed Democrat like California Governor Gavin Newsom agrees economic considerations are important. He is pressing ahead with lithium mining and processing near the Salton Sea.
- From protecting Indian ruins to locking up and shutting down America’s essential energy, economic, and military natural resources
The 1906 Antiquities Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt on June 8, 1906. It authorized the president to set aside federal lands as a national monument to protect historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest, and may reserve parcels of land, “…the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected…”
The first national monument was proclaimed by President Roosevelt - the Devil’s Tower
National Monument in Wyoming on September 24, 1906. It consisted of a mere 1,347 acres. Just enough land to provide protection for the tower and its immediate site.
But like all government programs it took on a life of its own and began to grow. The land designations became larger and larger, going far beyond the smallest size necessary to protect the site - until they regularly covered 500,000 acres, a million acres, two million acres.
The first glaringly obvious example of the Antiquities Act being used to prevent America’s natural resources from being developed and used occurred with the designation of the Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument in southern Utah on September 18, 1996.
This was a vast area, encompassing almost 2 million acres, larger than the state of Delaware, covering much of southern Utah and including the Kaiparowits Plateau, with its vast deposits of EPA-compliant coal - not just one of the largest such deposits in the world, but the single largest in the United States. An estimated 62 billion tons of coal with an estimated value of about $1 trillion.
There had been plans to develop this vast coal deposit since the late 1950s - early1960s, first by a consortium of Arizona and southern California utility companies, who proposed a vast project with a number of open pit mines and a huge coal-fired power plant. That project was eventually abandoned in 1976 because of environmental objections and costs.
But in 1991 a Dutch-owned company Angeles Resources stepped in and acquired leases and applied for permits to proceed with development, but on a much smaller scale, and with underground coal mines. BLM spent four years developing an EIS for the project and in 1995 the Andelex project was approved, totally to the delight of Utah and totally to the outrage of the national environmental movement.
In a surprise event in the heat of the 1996 election the Clinton administration gathered to announce the proclamation of a new 2 million acre national monument which would shut down the proposed mine.
On September 18th, President Clinton, VP Al Gore, and Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, all showed up to announce the designation of the new monument. And President Clinton specifically announced that he intended to stop the mine.
It’s interesting that the White House team did not make the announcement in Utah, but instead about as far away as they could safely gather, in Grand Canyon National Park on the south rim of the Grand Canyon - safe from the outraged people of Utah. Utah had overwhelmingly supported the Kaiparowits coal project, including Governor Michael Leavitt, U.S. Congressmen, including Democrat Rep. Bill Orton, the state legislature, county and local officials, and the public.
And a new and easy way to weaken America had been discovered.
Background
- There are 50 critical minerals listed in the 2022 Critical Mineral List pursuant to the Energy Act of 2020.
- Source Federal Register Notice U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior:
https://d9-wret.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/palladium/production/s3fs-public/media/files/2022%20Final%20List%20of%20Critical%20Minerals%20Federal%20Register%20Notice_2222022-F.pdf
- Source Federal Register Notice U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior:
- Hypocrite Biden blocks mineral mining his clean-energy goals require
- “We believe it’s hypocrisy across the board. It’s illogical across the board, and it’s harming Alaska and the United States. Not everybody is buying their story that they’re really wanting to produce critical minerals,” Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy told me by phone.
- “I’d be the first one to praise the Biden administration if I did see it, but all we see are a continual series of actions against Alaska’s ability to develop its resources, including minerals.”
- Mark Mills at the Manhattan Institute examined the underreported realities behind Biden’s ambitious environmental goals, reviewing a 2021 International Energy Agency report on wind, solar and battery technologies. Mills notes, “The IEA finds that with a global energy transition like the one President Biden envisions, demand for key minerals such as lithium, graphite, nickel and rare-earth metals would explode, rising by 4,200%, 2,500%, 1,900% and 700%, respectively, by 2040.”
- Greg Todd, Utah Office of Energy Development director, told me that 73% of Utah’s mining districts are on federal lands, and the state hosts at least 40 of the federally recognized critical minerals, among other resources. “It’s difficult to understand an administration that both intentionally complicates the permitting processes and throws millions of dollars in funds towards developing those same resources,” Todd said. “A benign administration is critical to our work in the state, and the resources we can extract on federal lands have implications nationwide, including for energy security.”
- Mark Mills – Manhattan Institute
- Greg Todd – Utah Office of Energy Development