URGENT ACTION ALERT!

     Dear friend, 

     Will you hold Barack Obama accountable for his latest multi-million acre land grab scheme?

     On Mar. 11, WTP Director of Grassroots Coalitions Tim Ravndal filed a formal Freedom of Information Act request with the Obama administration seeking documents relating to a plan uncovered by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) in which the administration would issue a torrent of “national monuments” designations for millions of acres of the West. 

     The partial documents were published by The New York Times and uncover a radical plan for the federal governemnt to lock up vast portions of the West using a 1906 law intended to protect small, individual prehistoric Indian sites from looters. 

     The idea is to begin the shut-down of the timber and energy industries by cutting off the domestic supply of timber and minerals.

     National monument designations do not require the approval of Congress, do not require the designated land to actually be worthy of national monument designation and are a favorite tool of radical environmentalists to place valuable natural resources off-limits.

     Congressman Doc Hastings (R-WA) has introduced H.R. 1254, which would require the Obama administration to release all documents relating to its strategy of using “national monument” designation to place millions of acres of the West off-limits to humans.

     The House Natural Resources Committee will vote on HR 1254 in its meeting Wednesday, May 5th.  The Democrat leadership is strong-arming members to kill it.

     Can I count on you to do two things?

     1)     Call your member of the House at 202-224-3121 and tell him or her to cosponsor Doc Hastings’ House Resolution 1254.  Tell them it simply asks the Obama administration to be up-front and transparent about what it is planning.

     2)     Call the Members of the Natural Resources Committee (http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=96&Itemid=27) and tell them to vote YES on House Resolution 1254 when it comes up for a vote during markup Apr. 28.

     I need you to contact these four members in particular.  Just click on their names to e-mail them.

     Rep. Jim Costa, CA-20 (202-225-3341)
     Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, SD-AL (202-225-2801)
     Rep. Dan Boren, OK-2 (202-225-2701)
     Rep. Martin Heinrich, NM-1 (202-225-6316)

     Tell them to support Doc Hasting’s H.R. 1254 when it comes up for a vote.  The administration should be up front and transparent about what it’s planning.

     Thank you for helping WTP fight radical environmentalist extremism.  Together we can hold the Obama administration responsible for planning such a radical land grab.

     Sincerely,

    
     Donny Ferguson
     Western Tradition Partnership
     National Director of Media & Public Relations

From the Denver Daily News article by Peter Marcus.  Read his entire article here.

The debate over designating new national monuments across the West continues, despite guarantees by President Obama’s administration that there is no immediate plans to create new monuments, including one in Colorado.

The controversy started earlier this month when a leaked memo from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s office surfaced. The memo from the former Colorado U.S. Senator’s office suggested that the administration was examining 14 areas for monument status, including the Vermillion Basin in Moffat County…

…Meanwhile, the conservative Western Tradition Partnership, a group that is working on a ballot initiative in Colorado that would allow utility customers to vote on whether to opt out of the state’s renewable energy standard, has filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking all documents related to the Antiquities Act.

Filed by Montana resident Tim Ravndal, director of grassroots coalitions for the Western Tradition Partnership, the request seeks to bring to light any discussion of designating land in the West as national monuments.

“Americans have a right to know just who is trying to eliminate their jobs and kick them off their land,” said Ravndal. “The Antiquities Act was passed in 1906 to protect small, individual archaeological sites. It was never intended as a weapon of conquest by radical environmentalists in their War on the West.”

On Mar. 11, WTP Director of Grassroots Coalitions Tim Ravndal filed a formal Freedom of Information Act request with the Obama administration seeking documents relating to a plan uncovered by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) in which the administration would issue a torrent of “national monuments” designations for millions of acres of the West. 

National monument designations do not require the approval of Congress, do not require the designated land to actually be worthy of national monument designation and are a favorite tool of radical environmentalists to place valuable natural resources off-limits.

Congressman Doc Hastings (R-WA) has introduced H.R. 1254, which would require the Obama administration to release all documents relating to its strategy of using “national monument” designation to place millions of acres of the West off-limits to humans.

The House Natural Resources Committee will consider HR 1254 in its meeting Apr. 28.  Can I count on you to do two things?

1)     Call your member of the House and tell him or her to cosponsor Doc Hastings’ House Resolution 1254.  Tell them it simply asks the Obama administration to be up-front and transparent about what it is planning.

2)     Call the Members of the Natural Resources Committee (http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=96&Itemid=27) and tell them to vote YES on House Resolution 1254 when it comes up for a vote during markup Apr. 28.

Four weeks after WTP filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking documents on a plan by the Obama administration to grab millions of acres of the West through “national monuments” designations, members of Congress are pressuring the administration as well.

From the House Natural Resources Committee Minority Press Office

Resolution of Inquiry Directed at Interior Dept. : Republicans Aim to Force Disclosure of Documents on Secret National Monument Plans
 “… we’re prepared to hold the President to his word on transparency and open government.”

WASHINGTON D.C. – House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Doc Hastings (WA-04) and National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee Ranking Member Rob Bishop (UT-01) will introduce a Resolution of Inquiry today that is aimed at requiring the Secretary of the Interior to turn over to the House of Representatives specific information related to potential National Monument designations. Hastings, Bishop and 14 Members of Congress sent a letter to Secretary Salazar in February requesting further information related to an internal DOI document that revealed the Administration is considering designating 13 million acres of land as National Monuments using the Antiquities Act. While the letter requested the information no later than Friday, March 26, 2010, the Committee has yet to receive the documents.

“These documents were requested over six weeks ago and not one page has been turned over by the Department. Since Committee Republicans disclosed seven pages of this internal document, the Interior Secretary has repeatedly made public statements that there is ‘no secret agenda’ and that this was merely a ‘brainstorming’ exercise. Despite these efforts to explain away what the Department was doing, there has been zero effort to be open and transparent by publicly disclosing documents on the Department’s actions. The American people deserve to know exactly why Obama Administration officials were discussing plans on locking up 13 million acres of land that could be used for recreation, economic development, energy production and job creation. It’s unfortunate that we have to go through such lengths to get simple answers to simple questions but we’re prepared to hold the President to his word on transparency and open government,” said Hastings.

“It has been a month and a half since the date of our initial request and yet we still haven’t heard back from the DOI. There is only one reason Secretary Salazar would be keeping these documents hidden from public view, and that is because they provide further proof that the Administration has in fact been planning to lock up millions of acres of land throughout the West without input from local residents, officials and stakeholders. What else are they hiding? The lack of regard for all Westerners who stand to be affected by the unilateral designation of massive National Monuments is further evidence that the West is under siege by this Administration,” said Bishop.

House rules provide that the Democrat Majority on the Committee has 14 legislative days to report the Resolution of Inquiry or it can be brought to the Floor of the House of Representatives for a vote as a Privileged Resolution. The Resolution of Inquiry seeks the information requested in the February 26, 2010 letter as well as additional information on potential DOI land actions.

# # #

Wyoming legislators passed, and Gov. David Freudenthal signed into law Mar. 4, a resolution opposing the proposed NREPA federal grab of over 20 million acres of the West.

The resolution outlines Wyoming’s opposition to H.R. 980, sponsored by a New York City Democrat and backed by radical Green groups.  It calls on the House Natural Resources Committee to vote down the bill.

Thousands of Wyoming jobs, and hundreds of thousands more in the area designated for federal takeover, depend on access to land for grazing, timber harvesting, resource and energy development and recreation.  Under NREPA, such activities would be outlawed and those jobs eliminated.

Eliminating those jobs and access to land is the intent of NREPA.  David Brower, founder of the League of Conservation Voters and Friends of the Earth, once boasted that loggers losing their jobs because of federal anti-logging legislation is “no different than people being out of work after the furnaces of (the Nazi concentration camp) Dachau shut down.”

WTP is working with legislators in other states to organize opposition to NREPA.

Just hours after announcing new plans to shut down energy development on federal lands, Washington, D.C. insiders report Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has been given the green light to run for Colorado governor. (http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/01/06/salazar_bid_fine_with_white_house.html)

And with the power of the White House behind him, you can bet Salazar has an inside track to the nomination.

But why would he give up a cushy job in D.C. to roll the dice and gamble on winning a tougher job in Denver?

Could it all be about who has control over Colorado’s state-controlled land?

You see, Salazar’s announcement that he was trying to shut down energy development (and the jobs and revenue it would create) only covers federal lands.

But radical Greens would love nothing more than to get state-controlled lands in their grasp as well. And they are working hard to shut down all energy development in Colorado, despite the fact it will send thousands of Coloradans to the unemployment line and send taxes skyrocketing and budget deficits spiral out of control.

Is Ken Salazar ready to serve up Colorado’s taxpayer-owned lands to radical Green interests, destroying jobs, raising taxes and making utilities more expensive in the process?

WTP will be keeping an eye on this development.