LTP News Sharing:

A shadowy land grab that appears to be rooted in the radical plans of the far left threatens the economies of Western states.

Among President Joe Biden’s flurry of executive orders during his first days in the White House was the creation of the “30×30 Plan.” In an Epoch Times commentary, National Center Senior Fellow Bonner Cohen, Ph.D., laid out how this administration “is employing a mix of executive authority and legislative action to force the transformation.” He noted the strong concerns of lawmakers and policy experts that this plan will “restrict the use of lands and waters – both public and private – to activities that serve the administration’s green objectives.”

A major concern at the outset has been that the White House is not forthcoming with the details of the 30×30 Plan:

In a Department of Interior fact sheet, the administration says “only 12 percent of lands are permanently protected,” adding that the same holds true for 23 percent of the nation’s waters. Exactly how these shares are to be expanded to 30 percent remains a mystery, because the White House has provided scant details.

A short report issued in May was “largely limited to generalities about restoring biodiversity and tackling climate change,” Bonner noted.

Bonner pointed out that the vague declarations bear a resemblance to a 2019 report by the radical Center for American Progress. They are also similar to the “Wildlands Project” that was created in the 1990s by EarthFirst! Founder Dave Foreman:

Rooted in a school of thought known as Deep Ecology, which rejects the idea that some living things have greater value than others, the Wildlands Project called for establishing a system of core wilderness areas where human activity would be prohibited. Biological “corridors” would link the “core areas,” serving as highways allowing nonhumans to pass from one to another.

“What began three decades ago as musings on the outermost fringes of the environmental movement,” Bonner wrote, “now serves as a template for federal climate policies contained in a White House executive order.”

What has been revealed about the 30×30 Plan thus far has generated a backlash among Western lawmakers and governors nationwide:

  • 64 members of the House Western Caucus wrote to Biden that their states will be “disproportionately impacted” and that this could create problems for “revenues-derived and jobs that depend on multiple-use public lands.”
  • 15 governors also sent a letter to the White House protesting the apparent move to “unilaterally change the policies governing land use in America… infringing on the private property rights of our citizens and significantly harming our economies.”

This fear is legitimated by a move at the U.S. Department of the Interior to limit state and local input in federal land acquisition. Bonner explained that this opens the door for Washington bureaucrats to use Land and Water Conservation Fund monies to “add to the already enormous federal estate.”

Comparing this to the policies of the Carter, Clinton and Obama Administrations and their own “War on the West,” former Acting Director of the Bureau of Land Management William Perry Pendley tweeted that “Biden is outdoing them all with his plans that will destroy the ability of Wyoming, the other 11 western states, and Alaska to survive economically.”

To read all of Bonner’s Epoch Times commentary – “Radical 30×30 Plan Will Ensure That This Land Will No Longer Be Your Land” – click here.

Author: David Almasi