Utah has filed a landmark public lands lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to address whether the federal government can simply hold unappropriated lands within a state indefinitely. Unappropriated lands are those that the federal government simply holds without a congressionally defined purpose. The "unappropriated" land in question is approximately 18.5 million acres in Utah controlled by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA).

• This lawsuit will NOT impact the millions of "appropriated" acres already designated as national parks, national monuments, wilderness areas, national forests, Tribal lands, or
  military properties.
• The federal government currently controls nearly 70 percent of the land in Utah.
• Utah is committed to keeping public lands in public hands and locally controlled.

What Your Government Is Up To: Land Theft by Fire

Private ownership of land is the foundation of individual freedom and the free market economy.  Federal ownership and control of land has been a contentious issue since the founding of our country.  Parks and Monuments are very popular, but 88% of federal land has no specific public value.  As part of the "30 x 30" program of the global elite's fascist agenda, our government will own and control 30% of American land by 2030.  The goal is the eventual elimination of all private land ownership.

It's summer, it's hot, and California is on fire as usual. 

• Wildfires are the latest government tool to steal and destroy private land
• The US Forest Service (USFS) plans to "reintroduce fire as part of natural forest environment"
• The USFS allows some fires to burn beyond predicted boundaries destroying private timber plots, grazing lands, and structures all of which has a negative economic impact on local communities
• The USFS reignites naturally occurring wildfires to insure they expand to fill predicted boundaries
• McDonough Family Land vs USA in the US Court of Federal Claims (No. 20-368L) will go to trial in November 2024.

The ranchers are seeking compensation for an alleged Fifth Amendment taking of property when the USFS ignited backfires and burnouts on Plaintiffs' land during the 2017 Alice Creek Fire in Lewis & Clark County, Montana.  Plaintiffs allege that the USFS intentionally burned large tracts of private range and timber owned by the Plaintiffs to fuel its intentionally ignited backfires and burnouts.  As a result, private land, timber, and buildings were destroyed as part of the USFS' land management efforts in the National Forest. More here and here.

Muleshoe Wildlife Refuge Expansion Draws Protest

On July 25th, a crowd of over 350 people gathered in Littlefield, Texas to voice their opposition to the expansion of the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge.  In April 2024, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), along with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the New Mexico Game and Fish Department, and The Nature Conservancy publicly announced the "Final Land Protection Plan & Environmental Assessment" (LPP) for the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge, without directly working with the impacted local governments.  The Service intends to increase the current 6,440-acre Refuge by permanently protecting 700,000 acres within a seven million acre "acquisition boundary" prioritizing land preservation over future economic development of the region.  More here and here (county opposition)

Forest Service Management Plans: We Don't Need No Stinkin' Congress

People and organizations that submitted previous comments on the 2020 Gila National Forest Plan Revision are now preparing their objection comments. The proposed revisions have sat in the Washington Office (WO) for four years. In that time the WO added "Indigenous Knowledges," "Old Growth" and "Climate Change" provisions that were not included in the four years of drafts, environmental impact statement (EIS) and public participation discussions. The plan revision document library can be accessed here.

The Forest Service is currently proposing amendments to all National Forest Plans to include "Indigenous Knowledges," "Old Growth" and "Climate Change" management provisions. An EIS is being prepared on the Mature and Old Growth Land Management Plan Direction. The plan documents can be found here. Comments have already been submitted questioning the Forest Service and White House authority to circumvent statutory and regulatory forest planning provisions.

• AmPRC member comment: In adopting 'indigenous knowledge', the agency is creating new rights for a select group out of whole cloth, rights that Congress has never authorized.

News Round-Up

• "Lakota People's Law Project" fleecing visitors to 14 national parks and monuments by asking them for donations to assuage the visitors' guilty feelings for stealing "sacred" lands
• Wildlife Movement bill would put yet more federal money toward creating yet more migration corridors and seasonal habitats
  
  • AmPRC member comment: "The same organizations that spawned American Prairie Reserve, pushed behind closed doors the Missouri headwaters conservation area - Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Group, TNC, Yukon to Yellowstone, etc. - are the big sponsors and supporter of this legislation. This is absolutely counterproductive to grassroots local opposition to such initiatives. All I can say is we are on a fast track to have a government of the NGOs, by the NGOs, and for the NGOs, payed for by the American Taxpayer.
• ESG proponents targeting farmers and ranchers by turning the farm bill into a climate bill imposing low-yield fertilizer mandates on pain of losing crop insurance, the same mandates that brought a food crisis and national bankruptcy to Sri Lanka
• Critics say feds using endangered species listing for a lizard as a pretext to shut down oil & gas drilling in parts of Texas and New Mexico

The Iron Fist of Climate Regulation Will Crumble

Before the Climatistas get too confident climate-based land use regulation is here to stay, they should ponder how the entire edifice is built on quicksand. 

First, the science is not 'settled'.  Over 31,000 American scientists have signed a statement supporting the proposition that there is no convincing scientific evidence that CO2 and greenhouse gas release causes or will cause catastrophic heating of the Earth.  PetitionProject.org

Second, computer climate models consistently overstate actual temperature results:

Third, recent studies further debunk widely-held climate beliefs:

• Human activity has had almost no discernible impact on carbon levels or temperature changes.

• A peer-reviewed scientific study found CO2 emissions in the atmosphere have zero impact on the Earth's global temperatures, and the climate change hypothesis remains just that, a hypothesis.
• The IPCC's climate conclusions are nonsense based on faulty assumptions (no ocean cooling) and mathematical errors .

The regulatory structure built on current widely-held beliefs will not endure.  The truth will win out and the iron fist of climate policy will crumble.