5/18/2005

From: alra@governance.net
Subject: Sneak Vote On CARA-LWCF Likely In The Senate Energy Committee

Land Rights Network
American Land Rights Association
PO Box 400 – Battle Ground, WA 98604
Phone: 360-687-3087 – Fax: 360-687-2973 
E-mail: alra@landrights.org or alra@governance.net 
Web Address: http://www.landrights.org 
Legislative Office: 507 Seward Square SE – Washington, DC 20003



Sneak Vote On CARA-LWCF Likely In The Senate Energy Committee 


Another CARA Type Land Grab Trust Fund Introduced In Senate 

Urgent Action Required – Sneak Attack on CARA-LWCF likely.  An amendment to add CARA-LWCF to the Energy Bill could happen as early as Thursday.  

Please make your calls, send your faxes and e-mails now!


Votes begin this week in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on the giant Energy Bill now working its way through Congress.  The mark up could take two weeks.  Every day will be a threat to you.   You’ll have to keep the pressure on.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will likely face an attempt by Lamar Alexander to sneak his new CARA-LWCF bill (S 964) into the Energy Bill as early as Thursday of this week.

Action Items:

-----1.  Call, fax and e-mail your two Senators to urge them to oppose S 964, the new CARA – LWCF Land Grab bill.  This is especially important if one or both of them are on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.  The number for any Senator at the Capitol Switchboard is (202) 224-3121.

-----2.  You need to call, fax and e-mail members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee every day this week and into next week to keep Senators from adding CARA-LWCF to the Energy Bill.

-----3.  This is an urgent call to action.   Call and e-mail your friends, neighbors and business associates to urge them call your Senators.


CARA-LWCF Background Below Committee Member list.


New Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee

(If they only have a website listed, you can usually send e-mail from there)

Republicans:

Pete Domenici (R-NM)
(202) 224-6621
FAX: (202) 228-3261
http://www.domenici.senate.gov

Larry Craig (R-ID)
(202) 224-2752
FAX: (202) 228-1067
http://www.craig.senate.gov

Craig Thomas (R-WY)
(202) 224-6441
FAX: (202) 224-1724
http://www.thomas.senate.gov

Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
(202) 224-4944
FAX: (202) 228-3398
http://www.alexander.senate.gov

Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
(202) 224-6665
FAX: (202) 224-5301
http://www.murkowski.senate.gov

Richard Burr (R-NC)
(202) 224-3154
FAX: (202) 228-2981
http://www.burr.senate.gov

Mel Martinez (R-FL)
(202) 224-3041
FAX: (202) 228-5171
http://www.martinez.senate.gov

James Talent (R-MO)
(202) 224-6154
FAX: (202) 228-1518
http://www.talent.senate.gov

Conrad Burns (R-MT)
(202) 224-2644
FAX: (202) 224-8594
http://www.burns.senate.gov

George Allen (R-VA)
(202) 224-4024
FAX:  (202) 224-5432
http://www.allen.senate.gov

Gordon Smith (R-OR)
(202) 224-3753
FAX: (202) 228-3997
http://www.gsmith.senate.gov

Jim Bunning (R-KY)
(202) 224-4343
FAX: (202) 228-1373
http://www.bunning.senate.gov



Democrats:

Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)
(202) 224-5521
FAX: (202) 224-2852
E-mail: senator_bingaman@bingaman.senate.gov

Daniel Akaka (D-HI)
(202) 224-6361
FAX:  (202) 224-2126
E-mail:  senator@akaka.senate.gov

Byron Dorgon (D-ND)
(202) 224-2551
FAX: (202) 224-1193
E-mail:  senator@dorgan.senate.gov

Ron Wyden (D-OR)
(202) 224-5244
FAX: (202) 228-2717
http://www.wyden.senate.gov

Tim Johnson (D-SD)
(202) 224-5842
FAX: (202) 228-5765
http://www.johnson.senate.gov

Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
(202) 224-5824
FAX:  (202) 224-9735
http://www.landrieu.senate.gov

Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
(202) 224-3841
FAX: (202) 228-3954
http://www.feinstein.senate.gov

Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
(202) 224-3441
FAX: (202) 228-0514
http://www.cantwell.senate.gov

Jon Corzine (D-NJ)
(202) 224-4744
FAX:  (202) 228-2197
http://www.corzine.senate.gov

Ken Salazar (D-CO)
(202) 224-5852
FAX: (202) 228-5036
http://www.salazar.senate.gov

 

Background:

It’s Liberal Lamar Alexander at it again.  

His Billion Dollar Boondoggle is back in another form.

S 964 was recently introduced by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), David Vitter (R-LA) and Tim Johnson (D-SD).  It is a smaller version of the giant Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA).

This bill, entitled Americans Outdoors Act (S.964), would allocate over $2 billion in outer-continental shelf revenues from 2006-2011 (Guaranteed off-budget trust fund) to buy more federal land.

This would provide the new CARA – LWCF (Land and Water Conservation Fund) with $450 million over 6 years.  An additional $350 million would be spent on wildlife restoration, $125 million for the Urban Park and Recreation Recovery program, and $450 million to help with the impact on coastal areas that produce oil and gas.

The House Appropriations Committee didn't provide funding in the fiscal '06 bill for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) that would allocate money between the federal, state and tribal governments for land acquisition.  In FY '05,  $255 million was allocated to the LWCF.  Chairman Richard Pombo of the House Resources Committee is opposed to funding Federal agencies with any kind of a CARA look-a-like trust fund.  But you must do your part.

You need to ask your Senators to oppose any attempt to make the LWCF (Land and Water Conservation Fund) into a trust fund.  It must go through the normal appropriations process every year.  It must compete with other important priorities like health care, military needs and much more.  Under S 964 only Social Security would have a higher standing.  We call the new bill CARA-LWCF.

CARA - LWCF on the Senate side is a smaller version of CARA and sets a precedent for putting a trust fund for land acquisition in place.  If it passes it appears it will get $450 million for six years.  Added to the other amounts, this bill looks like more than $2 billion.   Lamar Alexander continues his billion dollar boondoggle.

Senator Alexander introduced his bill last year that would have eventually mean the enactment of CARA, a $3 billion per year guaranteed off-budget land acquisition trust fund.  The new CARA-LWCF is really just the camels nose under the tent.  Once they get a trust fund, it will get bigger and bigger every year.  It must be stopped now. 

Massive guaranteed land acquisition is the death knell for rural America.

Liberal Lamar is grabbing a billion dollars now, and he will go for more later.
Stop this land-grabbing raid on the public treasury before it starts!! 

The green extremists will not stop until they have grabbed your land! 

They are setting aside over $450 million per year  - guaranteed every year!!!!!  And it is land acquisition and also administrative costs when land sales are closed, so it finances their operations as well as grabbing land.      

It is a guaranteed, permanent, annual pile of cash for the greens.  This will permanently finance the environmental movement with $450 million every year to finance their operations and seize property. 


However, there is good news and more bad news:  Congratulations to you who worked so hard to keep CARA-LWCF out of the Budget bill.  

Thanks to your efforts, Sen. Lamar Alexander’s (R-TN) backdoor scheme to insert the CARA (the so-called “Conservation and Reinvestment Act”) land grab scheme into next year’s budget was stopped!  Liberal Lamar tried to siphon over a billion dollars of guaranteed money from oil drilling revenues to the Land and Water Conservation Fund -- this “fund” is the chief federal money pot for government land grabs.  Thanks to lead negotiators in the House, Liberal Lamar’s land grab boondoggle was dropped from the final budget.

HOWEVER, when it comes to grabbing land, few are as tenacious as Lamar.  He’s not taking this recent defeat lying down.  Lamar has instituted a multi-step plan to slip CARA through in the dark of night.  The first step is found in wording in next year’s budget.  This section says that any money that Congress generates from energy development projects, that money can be used to fund a CARA-type land grab program.  So Liberal Lamar still has the door open.

Earlier this year, Liberal Lamar spelled out exactly what his latest CARA scheme will do. “This money would be used by states, cities and communities to create neighborhood parks, greenways, and land trusts,” says Alexander.  “This would help build state parks and greenways and land trusts, closer to where people live, near their homes.”

Got that?!  Lamar’s land grabs will be coming closer to where you live -- near your homes.  His envisioned massive new parks and greenways will be comprised of your private property.

Liberal Lamar is using parks and land acquisition to build power in the Senate.  

An old saying could be applied to him about the use of parks as political trading stock, “If the only tool he had was a hammer, everything thing he saw would begin to look like a nail.”  

With Alexander’s focus on land acquisition and parks, all your property begins to look like a park.

It is a new kind of park, what we call an “ego political park,” having less to do with resource values and more about pure political power and doing the work of the giant multi-national green industrial complex special interest groups that support him.



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