May 27, 2023

Highly Questionable Turkey, Open Border & Greater Tribal Sovereignty Policies Together Undermine U.S. National Security

December 21, 2015 by Leave a Comment

*Editor’s Comment* – The linked-to “Working Paper” is an interesting read and one that should challenge readers to get to work to discover the real Truth in what is being discussed. As always, to me it is interesting when someone, innocent or otherwise, begins to discover things that raise eyebrows, the result being a compilation of interesting information presented as “facts” and “public information.” The difficulty with this, and I certainly am not questioning the author’s work, is that for Truth Seekers, we know that much of the “facts” and “public information” are lies and full of distractions. It becomes necessary to sort over what tidbits are the truth and which parts are lies intended to distract. For this reason readers need to get to work to discover what is truth based on real events and not based on media presentations, or even what the Government tells us.

I have not taken the time to research this entire paper, and I’m not sure I will, at least not immediately, as my time is usually focused on other matters, albeit matters that ultimately link to a common source. Which brings me to my only comment about the Working Paper that I will offer readers who are truly interested.

In part of the information, the authors mention that ISIS gets most of their funding from the “illegal” sale of crude oil – the sale of which is mostly handled by Turkey and then re-marketed to other clients. This has been offered many times and treated as common knowledge in the Press and elsewhere, even though it shouldn’t be. If nothing else and before anyone can begin to comprehend the depth of power and complexity of this, of which the Working Paper, in my opinion, has only scratched the surface, you have to understand that the ONLY way that ISIS could be selling oil to Turkey and then getting resold on the open market to fund ISIS, is because it is ALLOWED to do so.

Keep that in mind when reading this Paper and any subsequent research you might intend to do. If you also are one that chooses to trust the United States Government and their partners, unwilling to think otherwise, my recommendation for you is to not read the rest of this page or the working paper.

Abstract:

On September 4, and 9, 2015, the Associated Press released an article that dismissed and effectively ridiculed national security allegations contained in the previous lawsuit my co-counsel and I had filed on September 2, 2015, on behalf of two Montana State Senators and a Montana-based recreational enterprise. The AP article authored by journalist Matthew Volz was distributed over domestic and international newswires and appeared in web media as far away as Europe, the Middle East and Singapore. Mr. Volz and the AP were ostensibly offended that our lawsuit challenged the U.S. government’s approval of the virtually condition-free transfer of a “black start,” “category 3 hazard” hydroelectric powered dam (the Kerr Dam) to a “federally recognized” Native American tribe – the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) of the Flathead Indian Reservation located in northwestern, Montana.

As the direct result of this reporting, we counsels and our clients had been castigated by the U.S. State Department and by the local liberal press as racially biased and conspiracy minded. This eventually caused our clients to seek voluntary withdrawal of this action. However, as subsequent publicly available facts have come to light, it has become more apparent that our lawsuit had actually struck a sensitive chord within the Obama administration by publicly exposing highly questionable policies that officials preferred remained covered up.

This Working Paper endeavors to relate the national security-oriented facts and allegations contained in our prior lawsuit to subsequently discovered publicly available information concerning the administration’s Turkey, open borders, and greater tribal sovereignty policies and initiatives. It then cross-analyzes these otherwise distinct and separate policy areas to show how their implementation together serves to undermine U.S. national security and the security of Montanans.

Given Turkey nuclear ambitions and Obama administration support therefor, Erdogan and Obama administration support of the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS, Obama administration open border policies benefiting Middle Eastern refugees, Mexican drug cartels and Latin American migrants, and Obama administration federal Indian policies promoting expansive tribal sovereignty at the expense of U.S. constitutional protections and federal and state laws, reasonable persons can conclude that our prior lawsuit’s allegations against Turkey were rather prescient, and that, consequently, U.S. national security and the security of Montanans are being greatly undermined. Moreover, reasonable persons can conclude that failure to act to protect Montanans’ rights may imply for those who we oppose, that we are complicit in their objectives. For this reason, we are currently drafting a new lawsuit that seeks redress for the harms our new clients continue to suffer as the result of these and other questionable administration policies.<<<To the Working Paper>>>

 

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The Feds Arm Terrorists

June 19, 2015 by 2 Comments

What if President Obama secretly agreed with others in the government in 2011 to provide arms to rebels in Libya and Syria? What if the scheme called for American arms merchants to sell serious American military hardware to the government of Qatar, which would and did transfer it to rebel groups? What if the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of the Treasury approved those sales?

What if the approvals were kept secret because some of those rebel groups were characterized by the same Departments of State and Treasury as terrorist organizations? What if the ultimate recipients of those arms were the militants and monsters in al-Qaida and ISIS who have slain and tortured innocents?

Source: The Feds Arm Terrorists – LewRockwell.com

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Historic Range: All Or Nothing? Intellectual Bankruptcy?

January 21, 2015 by 4 Comments

CognitiveDissonanceIt is more and more obvious with each passing day that the United States has eagerly, and yet unknowingly, moved into a Totalitarian socialist government and existence of servitude. Much of this occurred the result of intellectual bankruptcy at all levels. If you at all get it, this might appear to you as obvious in Court rulings about endangered species…and then again, maybe not.

The latest in this seeming Kabuki theater is one ruling and explanation of a Washington, D.C. judge, Beryl Howell, who essentially ruled that the United States, under the Obama-administrated Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) cannot remove any species from federal protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) unless that species is fully recovered throughout all of its historic range. In other words, the USFWS does not have authority because of the ESA to manage species through the confines of the ESA by declaring a species recovered within a designated region, most often called a Distinct Population Segment (DPS).

In Judge Howell’s Memorandum of Opinion in the Humane Society of the United States v. Sally Jewell, Judge Howell states, “The FWS’s interpretation is unreasonable on two levels. First, the structure, history, and purpose of the ESA do not permit the designation of a DPS for the purpose of delisting the vertebrates that are members of the DPS. Second, the ESA does not allow the designation of a DPS made up of vertebrates already protected under the ESA at a more general taxonomic level.”

This statement must be understood in its entirety in order that one can see the intellectual bankruptcy of such a statement. This statement says that the USFWS’s interpretation of the ESA is unreasonable because that department cannot create or designate a DPS for the purpose of delisting a species. Let me better explain for those who might not be able to fully understand. In the specific case in discussion, Judge Howell contends that gray wolves were listed as an endangered species in 1973 throughout all of the Lower 48 states – with the exception of Minnesota, where the wolf was listed as threatened.

The USFWS, after determining that wolves in a broad area of the Western Great Lakes had fully recovered, drew some boundaries and declared wolves within that boundary as no longer protected by the ESA.

Howell is not the first judge to rule this way. I have written about it before. Another Washington, D.C. based, intellectually bankrupt judge ruled pretty much identically as Howell did. My explanatory response to Judge Howell’s ruling can be found at this link.

At this link location you’ll be provided links to responses by the USFWS to Judge Friedman’s demand for an explanation as to why the USFWS has authority to create DPSs.

What Judge Howell is driving at is that because the USFWS cannot designate a segment as an area of recovered species, the only way that such a designation can be done is once wolves (or any other species) are fully recovered throughout its entire historic range. Howell reinforces this claim by saying, “The FWS’s interpretation of the ESA as authorizing the simultaneous designation and delisting of DPSs—or the designation of a DPS solely for the purpose of delisting—directly conflicts with the structure of the ESA and, consequently, this interpretation is entitled to no deference …. The ESA is remarkably clear: the FWS must identify “species” that are “threatened” or “endangered,” afford them the protections necessary to help them “recover,” and then re-evaluate the listed entities once such “species” are recovered.”

Hopefully you have come to understand exactly what both Judges, Friedman and Howell, are saying, because I’m going to spoil their party. There are two things to consider but the major one is this: After the Endangered Species Act of 1973 was signed into law by the crooked Richard Nixon, wolves were designated as “Endangered” under the authority of the ESA. I know of nobody who disputes that event. My logical, and I think rational (sorry if you don’t see it that way) question is this: If, according to Friedman and Howell, the United States Government, under its own created law (ESA), cannot designate an area to delist a portion of a species’ historic range as recovered, then how did the United State Government have authority to designate the listing initially in the Lower 48 states?

Supposedly under this brand new law, the U.S. carved out an area, defined by the borders of the United States, and designated wolves endangered within those borders. How could they do this? In addition, at the same time, they carved out another area, separated by the borders defining the State of Minnesota, and declared wolves there “Threatened”. How could they do that?

But it gets worse. Because a group of people, which included not only the USFWS but also some of the very same activist, animal protectionist groups suing the U.S. Government to stop delisting wolves, wanted wolves introduced into the Greater Yellowstone National Park region, the U.S. Government carved out three areas where wolves would be introduced and protected with different protections than the rest of the country. How in God’s name, according to Friedman and Howell, could the USFWS do that?

Then the same USFWS and the same animal rights, environmental, totalitarians, headed for the Southwest. Once again they carved out and set boundaries and protected a fake hybrid species of wild dog they wished to call a Mexican wolf. Why was the USFWS able to do this? Friedman and Howell say that the ESA doesn’t provide authority to do that.

These hypocritical wolf lovers, carved out borders in the Southeast and created a Frankenstein wolf – red wolf- and introduced it into the landscape. How could the USFWS do that if the ESA doesn’t provide authority?

This same thing happened in the Western Great Lakes and all we hear about everyday are more and more environmental groups seeking to carve out borders and introduce wolves…wolves in everybody’s back yard.

And on and on it goes but only now, now that wolves are a damned menace, destroying wildlife wherever it goes and posing threats to humans for safety and health, do these people want an end to carving out populations for delisting. The cognitive dissonance is amazing. What was acceptable to get their damned wolves infesting this nation is no longer acceptable to bring them under control.

The second issue, which I will touch on only briefly, has to do with the determination of historic range and significant portion of a species range. Historic range and currently feasible range should be determined as different. Whether we like it or not, what once was historic range can no longer be acceptable to support a species that may have once roamed that area.

Once that has been determined, because the ESA uses as criteria in determining if a species deserves ESA protection, we must decide if the species under question is “threatened” or “endangered” throughout a significant portion of that range.

Section 3 – (6) of the Endangered Species Act defines “Endangered Species” as: “(6) The term “endangered species” means any species which is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range…”

The Obama-administered USFWS placed into the Federal Register what it deemed to be the definition of “significant portion of its range.” This determination attempts to separate the differences between historic range and range.

Determination of “significant” is not so cut and dry and leaves far too much wiggle room. “…we determine that a portion of the range of a species is “significant” if the species is not currently endangered or threatened throughout all of its range, but the portion’s contribution to the viability of the species is so important that, without the members in that portion, the species would be in danger of extinction, or likely to become so in the foreseeable future, throughout all of its range.”

Making determinations would be easier if definitions actually meant something. To many, the use of “endangered or threatened throughout all or a significant portion of its range” has not at all been followed in listing of species for protection. The gray wolf is a prime example. Wolves live by the thousands all over the globe and only an idiot would think of them as being in danger of extinction. But that doesn’t bode well for those eager for other people to be forced to live with the animals.

It is my contention that the USFWS was wrong when it initially declared wolves endangered throughout all of the Lower 48 states because the determination was made utilizing historic range, with absolutely no determination as to whether wolves could conceivably exist in all of the Lower 48 States or that we would want them too.

According to statements made in the past by Ed Bangs and others, bent on protecting the wolves, they said that circumstances and “best available science” changes all the time and that the USFWS is forced, under the ESA, to recover wolves and they must make changes according to those influences. Perhaps then, it is time for these same ESA administrators to practice what they preach and begin making changes.

But this will be impossible to do provided this country gives jobs to judges that are clueless, intellectually deprived, make interpretations far outside anything historic or reasonable and to make statements like, “[The Courts] must lean forward from the bench to let an agency know, in no uncertain terms, that enough is enough.”

That door swings both ways.

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BREAKING: Senate report exposes the climate-environmental movement as being a cash machine controlling the EPA

July 31, 2014 by 1 Comment

“How a Club of Billionaires and Their Foundations Control the Environmental Movement and Obama’s EPA”<<<Read More>>>

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Obama Administration Refuses to Allow Public More Time to Weigh-in on President Obama’s Plan to Zone the Oceans

April 2, 2012 by Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 28, 2012 – House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (WA-04) today received notice from the Obama Administration that they will not agree to his request for a 90-day extension of the public comment period on the draft National Ocean Policy Implementation plan.

“President Obama issued an Executive Order imposing a new bureaucracy to zone the oceans that threatens to deter new economic investment, suppress job creation, restrict even recreational fishing, block energy development, and stretch far from the shore to affect farmers and inland communities. Given the high economic stakes, the vast amounts of new red-tape set to be unrolled, and the fact that some 15 agencies spent over two years devising this scheme, it’s unreasonable that the Obama Administration won’t allow the American people more than just 75 days to review and comment on it. This refusal to allow a thorough and open review of the plan to carry-out the President’s Executive Order is another example of the Obama Administration prioritizing their job-destroying agenda over the livelihoods of Americans from coast to coast,” said Chairman Hastings.

Despite several hearings and additional requests for more information, the Administration continues to refuse to tell Congress what programs they are cutting to provide the money to fund this new bureaucracy. The Administration has also failed to comply with requests for information regarding funding and staffing to implement the National Ocean Policy and a copy of any budget planning memoranda, drafts, and other guidance related to the development or implementation of the National Ocean Policy that was provided to federal agencies or departments for developing their FY 2013 and FY 2014 budget proposals.

In the hopes that more time might allow the Administration to provide budget information as well as provide more time for affected stakeholder groups to comment on the overall plan, Chairman Hastings first requested a 90-day extension in a letter sent to the co-chairs of President Obama’s National Ocean Council on February 23, 2012. This request was refused and only an additional 30 days were provided. A follow-up letter was sent on March 20, 2012 to once again request that the public comment period on the draft National Ocean Policy Implementation Plan be extended for a full 90 days.

The deadline for this information was March 26, 2012.

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Interior Department Puts Hit Out on Barred Owls, Proving Folly of Endangered Species Regulations

March 1, 2012 by 1 Comment

Occupy Occupy D.C. Calls for Cease Fire in Obama’s War on Nature

Washington, D.C. – Members of the National Center for Public Policy Research’s “Occupy Occupy D.C.” street team will rally against the Obama Administration’s new policy to kill the barred owl in deference to the spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest on Thursday at noon in Washington D.C.’s Freedom Plaza (13th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW).

“After decades of sidelining the once-thriving American timber industry and taking the food out of the mouths of loggers’ children to allegedly protect the spotted owl, the green bureaucracy is still not happy and has declared war on the environment,” said David Almasi, executive director of the National Center for Public Policy Research and director of the National Center’s “Occupy Occupy D.C.” project. “One owl is being sacrificed for another. Where is the respect for the laws of nature? The one thing we do know from this travesty is that the Endangered Species Act is out-of-control and desperately needs to be reformed.”

After more than two decades of setting aside millions of acres of woodland and dramatically scaling back the forestry industry in Washington, Oregon and California, the amount of spotted owls – which are designated as endangered under the Endangered Species Act – has declined by approximately 40 percent. A new plan has been announced by the U.S. Department of the Interior in which the genetically-similar barred owl is designated as a threat to the spotted owl and will be targeted for termination. Hundreds of barred owls may be executed by shotgun under the federal directive.”

National Center staff will rally at Freedom Plaza over the noon hour with (simulated) owls and loggers to protest the new animal vs. animal wildlife policy.

“Obama has picked winners and losers when it comes to bailouts, handouts and where we can get our energy. Now he’s playing God by favoring one animal over another. What arrogance,” added the National Center’s Almasi. “Virtually shutting down the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest didn’t work, so now the plan is to shut down the barred owl. This is unreasonable, and the answer is to rethink our government’s unsustainable endangered species regulations.”

The National Center has obtained a five-week permit for Freedom Plaza to share Freedom Plaza with left-wing “Occupy D.C.” protesters. Since February 13, it has sponsored noontime events every weekday.

The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a non-partisan, free-market, independent conservative think-tank with over 100,000 recent supporters. Contributions to it are tax-deductible and greatly appreciated.

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The Ag Minute: EPA’s Sue & Settle Strategy Makes for Bad Agriculture Policy

February 9, 2012 by Leave a Comment

*Editor’s Note* The following is a press release sent out by the House Committee on Agriculture, chaired by Frank D. Lucas. I would like to point out that although this release and the information contained in it, seems directed mostly to problems with agriculture regulation and the Environmental Protection Agency, this calling of the Obama Administration’s “Sue and Settle Strategy” is very widespread and reaches every aspect of Americans’ lives.

WASHINGTON – This week during The Ag Minute, guest host Rep. Tom Rooney discusses the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) growing trend of developing public policy as the result of lawsuit settlements. This defective method of putting in place regulations that circumvent the public rulemaking process can negatively impact the agriculture community. Rep. Rooney highlights one such example with the proposed Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) Reporting Rule.
Click here to listen to The Ag Minute. The transcript is below.

“It seems agriculture can’t catch a break from the Obama administration’s regulatory overreach.
“The latest example has the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considering a new mandate that could compromise the safety and security of America’s livestock operations.

“The proposed mandate would require all Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, to submit to the EPA a long list of proprietary information regardless of whether or not they discharge manure. This information would be made public. If you don’t comply you would face fines up to $37,500 per day.

“The problem with this proposed mandate is two-fold:

“First, livestock producers are concerned the new regulation not only violates their privacy, but also poses significant security risks. Making extensive information public could put their families and operations in peril.

“Second, this mandate is part of an ongoing and alarming trend within the EPA where policy is increasingly being developed as the result of lawsuit settlements and not the rule of law.

“This particular proposed regulation was the result of a settlement with environmental groups, so the farmers and the ranchers that will be affected by this mandate had no say in this development.

“Using lawsuit settlements to create policy is an underhanded way of changing the rules on our farmers and ranchers without their voice and consideration.”

The Ag Minute is Chairman Lucas’s weekly radio address that is released from the House Agriculture Committee.

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Obama Administration’s Attempt to Define “Significant Portion of it’s Range”

December 13, 2011 by 2 Comments

Let me say right off the top in order that some may not want to waste their time seeking truth, that I believe very strongly that the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA)(Act) is unconstitutional. It is such because it does not stand up against the authority of the Constitution in which a statute cannot, in and of itself, be a violation of the Constitution. It also does not mean that I oppose species protection. The majority of people in this country don’t care nor are they free to undertake independent thought to learn about the truth. Most every, if not all, laws on our books are nothing more than tools to extract power from the people and put it into the hands of government. I pray for your epiphany for truth.

However, simply because I believe the Act is criminal, doesn’t dismiss me from exposing the further fraud behind the ESA and now the attempts by Congress and the Obama Administration to “fix” it.

As I have written about recently, the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources has begun a series of hearings to examine the Endangered Species Act, (ESA) in hopes of determining: “How litigation is costing jobs and impeding true recovery efforts.” With the Committee using that description of the intent of their hearings, should we hold out any hope that any efforts will be directed at amending or, as some are asking, repealing of the ESA? Not likely.

But this has not stopped the Obama Administration of getting into the ESA fray. After all, we do have an election coming up and doing and saying anything to steal a vote is chichi these days in Washington. The “Services”, collectively the Department of Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, have gone all out to help Americans define the simple phrase, “significant portion of its range”.

That phrase is used extremely sparingly in the ESA and it pertains, at least in my mind and after reading Obama’s proposal I question if the “Services” have any mind, to criteria used to determine when and if a species might be considered for federal protection under the ESA.

Either I’m not fully enlightened or am too honest, but I happen to think that “significant portion” would mean a big or perhaps as much as a majority or more of something, especially when used in the context of a word that describes size, i.e. “portion”. Evidently I’m wrong, according to the “Services” Draft Policy to define “significant portion of its range”.

There is a reason that Congress and the President, beyond the usual politics, are taking a look, finally, at the ESA. It’s badly broken. In its day, it was intended, we were told, to provide a means in which government regulation could prevent the needless destruction of plant and animal species. Perhaps because the bill was signed into law by President Richard Nixon, who was embroiled in the Watergate scandal, set the stage for a bill designed to fail. And fail it has.

The Act has done little to save species and a lot to put a lot of money into the bank accounts of environmentalists, stifling job growth and stripping Americans of their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

If you and I can get beyond arguing whether the ESA is worth anything and discover that it’s not, then surely we can begin to see the efforts of Congress to examine portions of the ESA and President Obama’s administration to define words in the Act as laughable.

Regardless of whether President Obama thinks he can define “significant”, it is NOT going to do anything to change the problems with the ESA. Among the massive issues that makes the ESA look like a falling down old barn, is the lack of specific information in the administration of this bill. This leaves the door open to giving the Secretary of Interior too much discretion, flexibility and deference as it pertains to interpretive policy, and it has led to a myriad of court rulings in which judges have taken it upon themselves to interpret the ESA in any fashion they can.

One of the downsides to the judicial branches of our government is that every time there is a court ruling the words created in that ruling become case law and at least to some degree becomes precedent in future court cases, regardless of the truth or accuracy of what is written.

So what I can say right from the beginning that what the “Services” are attempting to do in defining “significant portion of its range”, is to hand select from existing statutes, case histories and case law, some or all which are seriously flawed, combined with their own interpretations of what they think the intention of the legislators were in writing the Endangered Species Act.

What on earth could go wrong?

Remember back in 1998?, when then President Bill Clinton was answering questions before a grand jury about his involvement with Monica Lewinsky? He was asked if there was anything going on between him and Miss Lewinsky. Bill Clinton responded to the jury:

“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. If the–if he–if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not–that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement….Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true.”

This kind of jibber-jabber spin is endemic among politicians and governmental agencies. That’s why we all hate them so. Obama’s “Services” people don’t go quite to that extreme in their attempts to define “significant portion of its range”, but read what they did say.

This Draft Policy took approximately 20 or more pages to conclude using the various resources and criteria I have already described above to determine that “significant portion of its range” in its entirely, together, as a whole, means:

provides an independent basis for listing and protecting the entire species

In other words, this is pretty much what we have all become subjected to over the past near 40 years. Some too highly paid, well indoctrinated person(s) at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) made a determination that a particular species was in trouble and was in trouble over a “significant portion of its range” and therefore was declared “endangered” and the “range” essentially became critical habitat.

But the “Services” have determined that it depends on what the meaning of significant is as to whether or not significant actually becomes significant.

This draft policy includes the following definition of “significant” as it relates to SPR [significant portion of its range]: a portion is “significant” in the context of the Act’s “significant portion of its range” phrase if its contribution to the viability of the species is so important that, without that portion, the species would be in danger of extinction.

Significant, used as an adjective, which if my English 101 is correct, is defined in most dictionaries as:

1. important; of consequence.
2. having or expressing a meaning; indicative; suggestive: a significant wink.
3. Statistics . of or pertaining to observations that are unlikely to occur by chance and that therefore indicate a systematic cause.

If “significant” is used as an adjective to describe portion, and portion in this context relates to a physical area or size of land, i.e. range, then wouldn’t significant portion suggest what is being talked about here is geographical scope of the range of a species?

The “Services” concluded that the choice of definition for “significant” is “important”. Therefore, it’s not the size of the portion of the range but the importance of the portion of the range they have decided to use.

I could go on with such foolishness but it’s more important to provide focus on what’s the bottom line. The bottom line here is that not only will Obama’s Draft Policy not only not help anything as it pertains to the ESA but will in fact make matters even worse.

Nothing in this policy limits the discretion and authority of the “Secretary” to implement and make definitions and rulings as he/she deems “scientific” and necessary for the administration of the ESA. Not only that, but this policy seriously places into the hands of the government, greater authority to not only create “portions of its range”, in other words, the Secretary can declare a species endangered and establish all the “critical habitat” he wants. He will still have power to create Distinct Population Segments. However, this new policy will allow the Secretary, through a series of predetermined “thresholds”; a measure of how important it is to protect one small area where a certain species may exist in order to save the entire species globally, create millions of tiny DPSs that the “Services” have said they don’t want to do.

Try to paint a picture in your mind of what this might look like. Haul out a map of the U.S. and it is peppered with 6,537,129 little dots where the Secretary has created a “significant” “significant portion of its range”. And that “significant” range happens to be the 350-acre ranch your trying to eke out a living on. I think this is significant.

Oh, that won’t happen! You all say. Won’t it? If not, then why is this included in the Draft Policy?

Therefore, if a species is determined to be endangered in an SPR, under this draft policy, the
species would be listed as endangered throughout all of its range, even in situations where the facts simultaneously support a determination that the species is threatened throughout all of its range. However, we recognize that this approach may raise concerns that the Services will be applying a higher level of protection where a lesser level of protection might arguably fit if viewed across a species’ range. The Services are particularly interested in public comments on this issue.

I am sure that how I see this Draft Policy and how others may see it will be worlds apart. For those who have faith and confidence in government and believe the ESA is a viable statute that actually protects species, while preserving the rights of Americans, you may think this attempt at defining “significant portion of its range” is a good thing. I do not!

I see it as further pushing the ESA bus over the cliff. It defines nothing. It only serves to foist even more autocratic power into the hands of government, particularly that of the Secretary of Interior. And, gives authority to the Secretary to amass hundreds upon thousands of SRPs (Significan Range Portions) and DPSs (Distinct Population Segments) all over the country.

One can think of instances where this authority and application may be practical but you shouldn’t think it actually will. One example might be the instance in Wyoming, where the state, in working with the Feds, has come up with a SRP of sorts that provides protections for the gray wolf in one zone, while at the same time the rest of the state isn’t burdened under the same ball and chain of ESA protection. But when you consider the amount of abuse that will come from this authority, it becomes a more effective fire starter than an extinguisher. There are so many catch words and phrases in this Draft that one would be foolish to think it’s intended for anything of value to the people.

While I am not expecting anything productive to come out of the Committee hearings in Washington, I will write them and tell them that they need to derail this Draft Policy and actually get down to meat and potato changes or consider complete repeal of the ESA.

If you would like to take the time to read Obama’s Draft Policy, you can read it at this link. In addition, at the end of the Policy proposal, you’ll find specific questions the “Services” are seeking comments on and how you can submit comments about this policy. Comments will be opened for 60 days after the official posting of the Draft to the Federal Register.

Tom Remington

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Filed Under: Endangered Species Act Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Obama Administration’s Attempt to Define “Significant Portion of it’s Range”

December 12, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Let me say right off the top in order that some may not want to waste their time seeking truth, that I believe very strongly that the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA)(Act) is unconstitutional. It is such because it does not stand up against the authority of the Constitution in which a statute cannot, in and of itself, be a violation of the Constitution. It also does not mean that I oppose species protection. The majority of people in this country don’t care nor are they free to undertake independent thought to learn about the truth. Most every, if not all, laws on our books are nothing more than tools to extract power from the people and put it into the hands of government. I pray for your epiphany for truth.

However, simply because I believe the Act is criminal, doesn’t dismiss me from exposing the further fraud behind the ESA and now the attempts by Congress and the Obama Administration to “fix” it.

As I have written about recently, the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources has begun a series of hearings to examine the Endangered Species Act, (ESA) in hopes of determining: “How litigation is costing jobs and impeding true recovery efforts.” With the Committee using that description of the intent of their hearings, should we hold out any hope that any efforts will be directed at amending or, as some are asking, repealing of the ESA? Not likely.

But this has not stopped the Obama Administration of getting into the ESA fray. After all, we do have an election coming up and doing and saying anything to steal a vote is chichi these days in Washington. The “Services”, collectively the Department of Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, have gone all out to help Americans define the simple phrase, “significant portion of its range”.

That phrase is used extremely sparingly in the ESA and it pertains, at least in my mind and after reading Obama’s proposal I question if the “Services” have any mind, to criteria used to determine when and if a species might be considered for federal protection under the ESA.

Either I’m not fully enlightened or am too honest, but I happen to think that “significant portion” would mean a big or perhaps as much as a majority or more of something, especially when used in the context of a word that describes size, i.e. “portion”. Evidently I’m wrong, according to the “Services” Draft Policy to define “significant portion of its range”.

There is a reason that Congress and the President, beyond the usual politics, are taking a look, finally, at the ESA. It’s badly broken. In its day, it was intended, we were told, to provide a means in which government regulation could prevent the needless destruction of plant and animal species. Perhaps because the bill was signed into law by President Richard Nixon, who was embroiled in the Watergate scandal, set the stage for a bill designed to fail. And fail it has.

The Act has done little to save species and a lot to put a lot of money into the bank accounts of environmentalists, stifling job growth and stripping Americans of their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

If you and I can get beyond arguing whether the ESA is worth anything and discover that it’s not, then surely we can begin to see the efforts of Congress to examine portions of the ESA and President Obama’s administration to define words in the Act as laughable.

Regardless of whether President Obama thinks he can define “significant”, it is NOT going to do anything to change the problems with the ESA. Among the massive issues that makes the ESA look like a falling down old barn, is the lack of specific information in the administration of this bill. This leaves the door open to giving the Secretary of Interior too much discretion, flexibility and deference as it pertains to interpretive policy, and it has led to a myriad of court rulings in which judges have taken it upon themselves to interpret the ESA in any fashion they can.

One of the downsides to the judicial branches of our government is that every time there is a court ruling the words created in that ruling become case law and at least to some degree becomes precedent in future court cases, regardless of the truth or accuracy of what is written.

So what I can say right from the beginning that what the “Services” are attempting to do in defining “significant portion of its range”, is to hand select from existing statutes, case histories and case law, some or all which are seriously flawed, combined with their own interpretations of what they think the intention of the legislators were in writing the Endangered Species Act.

What on earth could go wrong?

Remember back in 1998?, when then President Bill Clinton was answering questions before a grand jury about his involvement with Monica Lewinsky? He was asked if there was anything going on between him and Miss Lewinsky. Bill Clinton responded to the jury:

“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. If the–if he–if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not–that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement….Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true.”

This kind of jibber-jabber spin is endemic among politicians and governmental agencies. That’s why we all hate them so. Obama’s “Services” people don’t go quite to that extreme in their attempts to define “significant portion of its range”, but read what they did say.

This Draft Policy took approximately 20 or more pages to conclude using the various resources and criteria I have already described above to determine that “significant portion of its range” in its entirely, together, as a whole, means:

provides an independent basis for listing and protecting the entire species

In other words, this is pretty much what we have all become subjected to over the past near 40 years. Some too highly paid, well indoctrinated person(s) at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) made a determination that a particular species was in trouble and was in trouble over a “significant portion of its range” and therefore was declared “endangered” and the “range” essentially became critical habitat.

But the “Services” have determined that it depends on what the meaning of significant is as to whether or not significant actually becomes significant.

This draft policy includes the following definition of “significant” as it relates to SPR [significant portion of its range]: a portion is “significant” in the context of the Act’s “significant portion of its range” phrase if its contribution to the viability of the species is so important that, without that portion, the species would be in danger of extinction.

Significant, used as an adjective, which if my English 101 is correct, is defined in most dictionaries as:

1. important; of consequence.
2. having or expressing a meaning; indicative; suggestive: a significant wink.
3. Statistics . of or pertaining to observations that are unlikely to occur by chance and that therefore indicate a systematic cause.

If “significant” is used as an adjective to describe portion, and portion in this context relates to a physical area or size of land, i.e. range, then wouldn’t significant portion suggest what is being talked about here is geographical scope of the range of a species?

The “Services” concluded that the choice of definition for “significant” is “important”. Therefore, it’s not the size of the portion of the range but the importance of the portion of the range they have decided to use.

I could go on with such foolishness but it’s more important to provide focus on what’s the bottom line. The bottom line here is that not only will Obama’s Draft Policy not only not help anything as it pertains to the ESA but will in fact make matters even worse.

Nothing in this policy limits the discretion and authority of the “Secretary” to implement and make definitions and rulings as he/she deems “scientific” and necessary for the administration of the ESA. Not only that, but this policy seriously places into the hands of the government, greater authority to not only create “portions of its range”, in other words, the Secretary can declare a species endangered and establish all the “critical habitat” he wants. He will still have power to create Distinct Population Segments. However, this new policy will allow the Secretary, through a series of predetermined “thresholds”; a measure of how important it is to protect one small area where a certain species may exist in order to save the entire species globally, create millions of tiny DPSs that the “Services” have said they don’t want to do.

Try to paint a picture in your mind of what this might look like. Haul out a map of the U.S. and it is peppered with 6,537,129 little dots where the Secretary has created a “significant” “significant portion of its range”. And that “significant” range happens to be the 350-acre ranch your trying to eke out a living on. I think this is significant.

Oh, that won’t happen! You all say. Won’t it? If not, then why is this included in the Draft Policy?

Therefore, if a species is determined to be endangered in an SPR, under this draft policy, the
species would be listed as endangered throughout all of its range, even in situations where the facts simultaneously support a determination that the species is threatened throughout all of its range. However, we recognize that this approach may raise concerns that the Services will be applying a higher level of protection where a lesser level of protection might arguably fit if viewed across a species’ range. The Services are particularly interested in public comments on this issue.

I am sure that how I see this Draft Policy and how others may see it will be worlds apart. For those who have faith and confidence in government and believe the ESA is a viable statute that actually protects species, while preserving the rights of Americans, you may think this attempt at defining “significant portion of its range” is a good thing. I do not!

I see it as further pushing the ESA bus over the cliff. It defines nothing. It only serves to foist even more autocratic power into the hands of government, particularly that of the Secretary of Interior. And, gives authority to the Secretary to amass hundreds upon thousands of SRPs (Significan Range Portions) and DPSs (Distinct Population Segments) all over the country.

One can think of instances where this authority and application may be practical but you shouldn’t think it actually will. One example might be the instance in Wyoming, where the state, in working with the Feds, has come up with a SRP of sorts that provides protections for the gray wolf in one zone, while at the same time the rest of the state isn’t burdened under the same ball and chain of ESA protection. But when you consider the amount of abuse that will come from this authority, it becomes a more effective fire starter than an extinguisher. There are so many catch words and phrases in this Draft that one would be foolish to think it’s intended for anything of value to the people.

While I am not expecting anything productive to come out of the Committee hearings in Washington, I will write them and tell them that they need to derail this Draft Policy and actually get down to meat and potato changes or consider complete repeal of the ESA.

If you would like to take the time to read Obama’s Draft Policy, you can read it at this link. In addition, at the end of the Policy proposal, you’ll find specific questions the “Services” are seeking comments on and how you can submit comments about this policy. Comments will be opened for 60 days after the official posting of the Draft to the Federal Register.

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Filed Under: Endangered Species, Endangered Species Act, National/World, Politics in General Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,