GOVERNMENT LAND GRAB CRISIS SOURCE MATERIAL (2000-2001)
on CURRENT NATIONAL LEGISLATION PROPOSALS

= KEY DOCUMENT (Most Important)

8/6/01 KELLEY O. BEAUCAR - FoxNews - HOUSE TO CONSIDER CONTROVERSIAL LAND-ACQUISITION BILL - A bill that would give the federal government more money to acquire private lands is headed for a full House vote sometime this fall. The Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA) was voted out of the House Resources Committee last week on a 29-12 vote. The measure alarms some property rights advocates and critics of current federal stewardship efforts.  "It's a huge bill, it's a lot of money," ... "It's money that is going to be off budget, that Congress won't have a chance to look at again to see if the programs are wasting money."
8/1/01 HENRY LAMB - eco-logic on-line - CONGRESS AT ITS WORST - CARA is nothing less than the nationalization of private property in America. Hitler, Stalin, and Castro did it with brute force; Congressman Don Young, and his co-sponsors of CARA, are more generous - they are allowing you to pay for the nationalization of America with your tax dollars...The government has no business being in the real estate business. Realtors and home builders and contractors' associations should be up in arms about the government moving in on their free market place. The Farm Bureau and the Grange, and other agricultural organizations should be storming Washington to protest CARA - the bill designed to fund the rural cleansing efforts now underway at Klamath Falls, Oregon, and across the West.
8/1/01 DIANE ALDEN - eco-logic on-line - BROKEN PROMISE LAND REVISITED - At the rate our government and certain special interests are going, those who might someday want to build, own or live on the land will not be able to do so...The land will be offered to the rich, ...or given in tribute to the well-connected or some new green religious group as a bribe to keep them quiet...[It] will lock [the rural poor and lower classes] out of a home and property ownership. As less land is made available for sale at reasonable prices, most of them will never know the thrill of having a place of their own...no one seems to be listening ö certainly not Congress, not even the Republicans who promote bills like CARA, which will in effect put rural America out of business...They don't have time for old-fashioned notions like property rights or, more Importantly, the Bill of Rights...Why conservatives bother voting for Republicans is in question. Last year we had Republican Trent Lott supporting CARA in the Senate, and in the House, Republicans Tauzin and Young.  On top of that, according to American Land Rights Association, Republican James Hansen of Utah, chairman of the Resources Committee, has shot Westerners in the back...The Resources Committee had a field hearing, but Chairman Hansen was too busy going to Paris on congressional business to deal with it...Only one hearing was held on H.R. 701, CARA. American Land Rights says, "Hansen shut out over one hundred people who requested to speak in opposition to CARA! The deck was stacked ö speakers at the hearing were ten to one against property rights, ten to one for more grants to enviro groups and more condemnation of private land."
7/26/01 KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL - Wall Street Journal - RURAL CLEANSING - Environmentalists Goal: Depopulate the countryside - This is what's really happening...and it's repeating itself in environmental battles across the country. Indeed, the goal of many environmental groups -- from the Sierra Club to the Oregon Natural Resources Council -- is no longer to protect nature. It's to expunge humans from the countryside.  The strategy of these environmental groups is nearly always the same: to sue or lobby the government into declaring rural areas off-limits to people who live and work there. The tools for doing this include the Endangered Species Act and local preservation laws, most of which are so loosely crafted as to allow a wide leeway in their implementation.  In some cases owners lose their property outright. More often, the environmentalists' goal is to have restrictions placed on the land that either render it unusable or persuade owners to leave of their own accord...the average value of an acre of farm property in Klamath has dropped from $2,500 to about $35. Most owners have no other source of income. And so with the region suitably desperate, the enviros dropped their bomb...they submitted a proposal urging the government to buy the farmers off...But, of course, this is the goal. Environmental groups have spoken openly of their desire to concentrate people into cities, turning everything outside city limits into a giant park...the Sierra Club posted on its Web site a claim that "efficient" urban density is about 500 households an acre [about three times the density of Manhattan's most tightly packed areas]...Do the people who give money to environmental groups realize the endgame is to evict people from their land?...The American dream has always been to own a bit of property on which to pursue happiness...But this dream will disappear -- as it already is in Oregon and California -- if environmental groups and complicit government agencies are allowed to continue their rural cleansing. [ALRA Comment: CARA is the funding mechanism for accomplishing this enviro rural cleansing goal]
7/26/01 CONGRESSIONAL GREEN SHEETS - CONSERVATION BILL SUPPORTERS BEAT BACK A VARIETY OF AMENDMENTS - Supporters of the Conservation and Reinvestment Act Fund (HR 701) fended off numerous attempts by property rights advocates to restrict the scope of the bill. In the day's most procedurally convoluted action, the committee reconsidered and finally rejected an amendment it had earlier approved to block money from CARA from being used in lawsuits.  
7/26/01

COLOR VOTE CHART of HOUSE RESOURCES COMMITTEE MARKUP OF CARA - by ALRA

7/26/01 PAT TAYLOR - CNSNews.com - 'LAND GRAB' BILL PASSES HOUSE COMMITTEE - The House Resources Committee passed the controversial Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA) late Wednesday, after defeating every amendment that would have protected private property rights, water rights, and local control..."You guys are just knee-jerk -- no, no, no -- no matter what it is," said a frustrated Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), one of the bill's leading opponents, as amendment after amendment was voted down.  "This is about land acquisition at any cost," said Pombo. "You want the federal government to buy as much land as you possibly can."
7/26/01 JOHN HEILPRIN - Anchorage Daily News - BILL JUMPS HOUSE HURDLE - CARA: RESOURCES COMMITTEE PASSES LAND CONSERVATION ACT - The committee debated for four hours before voting 29-12 to send the Conservation and Reinvestment Act to the full House...Supporters envisioned huge amounts of federal dollars flowing toward federal conservation programs. Critics, particularly Westerners, said the government already owns too much land. They described the bill as a federal land grab. "We don't want to invest a federal land manager with the rights of a czar," said Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz.
7/02/97

[recently discovered but important older article]

 ALSTON CHASE - Anchorage Daily News - Voice of the Times -  CONGRESS: STOP ME BEFORE I BUY LAND AGAIN - ...In his 1961 bestseller, "African Genesis," writer Robert Ardrey observed that "the drive to gain, maintain and defend the exclusive right to a piece of property is an animal instinct approximately as ancient and powerful as sex."   We live in a permissive age, where land, like sex, is pursued without limit. Under the guise of environmental protection, a mostly urbanite society, insatiably seeking space, uses federal acquisitions as a weapon against a dwindling rural population for control of territory.  Hence, as the battle for the environment replaces the war on communism, the conflict is transformed into a struggle between city and country. And thanks to incessant federal land grabs, rural America, including its flora and fauna, is losing.
7/25/01 ALLISON FREEMAN AND DAVID W. RIGGS - The Washington Times - PLACING PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS AT RISK - Even "voluntary" acquisition is troublesome. As plenty of landowners in...rural counties can tell you, "willing sellers" are often just resigned sellers, forced into "willingness" by harassment and restrictions around their land...If The Washington Post on May 11 last year and The Washington Times of May 10 last year can both agree that CARA is a bad bill, it seems many of our representatives would concur. But the bill has 235 cosponsors, all of whom seem to be blinded by dollar signs, falling prey to the lure of huge sums of money going to their states...the representatives might see that this legislation threatens...private property, freedom, and, for Republicans, their vast rural voting base.
7/24/01 PAT TAYLOR - CNSNews.com - COLORADO FAMILY: FEDS USING 'AGGRESSIVE, RELENTLESS' EFFORT TO FORCE SALE OF RANCH - During World War I, Charley Mantle served his country in the U.S. Cavalry. After the war, the U.S. government encouraged veterans to help settle the country's vast western frontier. They offered each veteran a 160-acre "homestead" in rugged wilderness.  So when Mantle got out of the Army in 1919, he decided to homestead a nice, quiet spot in Hell's Canyon in northwestern Colorado...There, he thought, he and his heirs could live peacefully without ever being bothered by anybody.  He was wrong.  The Mantles' troubles began in 1960, when Congress expanded the Dinosaur National Monument (DNM). Originally consisting of 80 acres near Jensen, Utah, the monument's boundaries now spread into Colorado and encompassed the entire Mantle Ranch.  Tim Mantle, Charley's son, said at the time, the family was assured that their property's inclusion in the monument would cause them no problems.  "I can remember our U.S. senator standing on the steps of our front porch and promising us that we didn't have to worry about our grazing rights," said Tim Mantle. "At that time, we still thought a politician's word meant something."   [ALRA Comment:  more of what to expect from CARA funded and enabled government land acquisition abuse and landowner harassment.  This is a case history of an aggressive and relentless federal effort to force a landowner to being a false "willing seller".]
7/24/01 WILLIAM JUD - etherzone.com - LAND GRAB TWO - HR 701  CARA... A SOCIALIST DISASTER IN THE MAKING - CARA is back again, returning like the poison ivy that won't quit growing in your yard. CARA hasn't changed since last year's defeat in Congress. CARA still diverts $45 Billion from the US Treasury over fifteen years, mainly to fund government purchase of privately owned land...$60 Million each year would go to extremist environmental organizations to train eco-police to trespass on your land looking for "endangered species" to stop your use of your land...CARA is a Socialist land-grab and a disaster in the making, and has no place in American government. CARA must be stopped again, now, and forever, if American citizens are to remain free to use and enjoy the land they own and live on.
7/22/01 Letter to Anchorage Daily News - COUNCIL DISREGARDS THOSE OPPOSED TO LAND ACQUISITIONS.  ALRA Comment: Alaska native villagers plea for help and object to government purchase of native lands and foreclosure of options for their children's future.  CARA will do this to native communities all over Alaska and the US.   "Does [government] care about taking our lands away from us, our homes, our culture, and the future of our children? How does oil money justify acquiring Native lands? Is this a system in which the state of Alaska and the U.S. government will eventually own all the land? I continue to ask my senators, congressmen, governor and state representatives for help."   These folks are not likely to get much help out of Gov. Tony Knowles, Sen. Frank Murkowski, or Rep. Don Young -- all of whom support massive CARA land buying.
7/1/01 ASSOCIATED PRESS - Alaska Journal of Commerce - SUPPORTERS TRY AGAIN WITH YOUNG-SPONSORED CONSERVATION AND REINVESTMENT BILL - Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo. was sympathetic to a Colorado rancher who testified that her family is harassed and under constant surveillance by the National Park Service, which has threatened to condemn the family's ranch and make it part of the surrounding Dinosaur National Monument.
6/29/01 FEDERAL PARKS & RECREATION - CARA APPEARS SOLID IN HOUSE, BUT MAY NOT BE ELSEWHERE -  Although the House is said to be eager to pass CARA, the Senate and the Bush administration are unknown quantities. No bill has been introduced in the Senate and the Senate Energy Committee probably won't address the issue until fall because it is tied up with energy legislation. The Bush administration reportedly would as soon stick to a truncated version of the bill, known as CARA-lite, that the House approved last week as part of a fiscal year 2001 Interior Appropriations bill..."That the administration was unable to provide someone to testify means that they don't like the bill," said Mike Hardiman, legislative director for the American Conservative Union and bill opponent. "But they don't want to openly disagree with Young and Tauzin."
6/27/01 PAT TAYLOR - CNSNews.com - FIELD HEARINGS UNLIKELY FOR 'LAND GRAB' BILL - House Resources Committee Chairman James V. Hansen (R-Utah) has refused a request by some House members to hold hearings in western states before the committee votes on CARA.
6/26/01 JIM DORE - Anchorage Daily News - Letter to the Editor - ATTEMPT TO PASS CARA AGAIN IS A SIGNAL OF BIG GOVERNMENT- Congressman Don Young...favors the Karl Marx method of centralizing government power: abolishing private property. Young is the champion of socialism and Bill Clinton instead of the defender of liberty and George Washington.
6/25/01 PAT TAYLOR - CNSNews.com -'LAND GRAB' OPPONENTS CRY FOUL IN HOUSE HEARING - As legislation moves through Congress guaranteeing the transfer of billions of dollars worth of private land to the federal government, opponents complain they were barred from testifying against the bill...Robert J. Smith, a private property rights expert with the conservative Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute, called the hearing a "Star Chamber" proceeding. He criticized Hansen and CARA's author, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) for calling witnesses that Smith claimed were carefully selected to stack the deck in favor of the legislation.
6/25/01 DIANE ALDEN - NewsMax.com - CARA: LIVING IN THE SOVIET UNION OF AMERICA - Recently, the Moscow Times had a story about the new Russian Land Code. The bill spells out the way the sale of commercial and private land to Russian and foreign nationals is going to be handled...We are socializing and collectivizing our land in the U.S. We are doing it with the cooperation of the Republican and Democratic parties and Congress. The bill before our modern-day feudal barons and Bolsheviks is called CARA and it proposes to turn over even more land to government. It is the HMO of our era ö a bad idea turned into bad law which eventually requires more bad law to fix it...The new urbanites crave aesthetic values so they inflict policies specific to them onto the rest of us. Plenty of East Coast cities and West Coast urban areas are covered in concrete. However, most of America is still green, rural or small town and will remain that way unless the new Bolsheviks and barons get their way. The bi-coastal elite think that because they have fouled their nests they have to make sure others don't do the same thing... It is amazing to me that Russia is getting closer to privatizing land while the U.S. is getting closer to collectivization. What happened, America? You've been listening to the comforting sounds of National Geographic and PBS as they spin a dream based on half-truths and outright lies. A dream that will be a nightmare for all of us very soon.
6/24/01 JOAN MCKINNEY - The Advocate (Baton Rouge) - LOUISIANIANS PUSHING CARA -- AGAIN - ...CARA enthusiasts may encounter as many problems -- maybe more -- in the Senate and at the White House as they did last year. The change in the Senate to Democratic control and the change in the White House to Republican control have not yet produced breakthroughs for CARA. In fact, those changes have produced new complications.
6/22/01 KELLEY O. BEAUCAR - FOXNews.com - PROPERTY RIGHTS ADVOCATES DECRY FEDERAL LAND GRAB -  The federal government is preparing to give additional property to a landlord that is struggling with the upkeep of the land it already has -- itself....These reports have some in Congress hoping to put CARA on hold. Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter, R-Idaho, called the legislation little more than a federal land grab. The feds are "just not managing the land" they already own, Otter said. "Now we want them to buy more of it so it will all be in greater disrepair?"
6/20/01 HEARINGS, HOUSE RESOURCES COMMITTEE ON HR 701, WASHINGTON, DC
6/08/01 PUBLIC LANDS NEWS - HOUSE PANEL APPROVES MONEY BILL WITH BIG CARA-LITE FUNDING -  ...Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, scolded both the administration and conservationists for not supporting fully Title VIII. "(The subcommittee action) should send a message to both the administration that they should recognize a good deal when they see it and especially it should send a significant message to the environmentalist and conservation community that there are ways to deal with these problems that accomplish the same results without abusing the budget process."  Obey was angry at environmentalists and conservationists because they are still campaigning for a permanent conservation bill called CARA, the Conservation and Reinvestment Act, that would provide $3 billion per year, compared to CARA-lite's $1.76 billion. And CARA would largely circumvent annual appropriations.
5/31/01 Chart tracking the rate of adding CARA cosponsors in the House and Senate (Requires Adobe Reader)
5/27/01 HICKEL - FRAMPTON DEAL TO FEDERALIZE PRIVATE NATIVE LAND - How did it come about that the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustees spent over half of the EVOS endowment buying land with out any authorizing legislation to do so? Here is how former Alaska Governor Walter Hickel (Alaskan Independence Party, former Republican) did a deal with George Frampton to get $28 million in bail out money for the Seward (Alaska) Sea Life Center.  $500 million then was spent to move private land back to federal ownership in a state that already is almost 90% government owned!  
4/20/01 FEDERAL PARKS & RECREATION - CARA MAY MAKE SUMMER COMEBACK.  House committee plans spring hearing.  House vote too?  New CARA staffer hired.  Sen. Reid writing wildlife bill.  
4/3/01 JEFF TOLLEFSON - Billings Gazette ö CARA REVIVED FOR 2ND DEBATE - CODY, Wyo. - The congressional battle lines are already being drawn for the second debate over CARA...Despite the broad support of CARA's conservation initiatives, [Senator] Thomas said he was barraged with opposition.  "Talk to the cattlemen's association. Talk to the wool growers. Talk to the people who have to deal with federal land," he said.
2/23/01 FEDERAL PARKS & RECREATION - CARA LEGISLATION BEGINS TO STIR -  Bush position closely watched. Young reintroduces HR 701, but Senate may be in 'neutral.' Opponents say Senate gains have isolated Sen. Murkowski.
2/2/01 SAM BISHOP - Fairbanks Daily News-Miner ö TIME NOT RIGHT FOR SECOND CARA - Critics of a land conservation and coastal projects funding bill promoted by Rep. Don Young say his colleague, Sen. Ted Stevens, has announced his opposition to the bill.  The senator himself, however, says that he hasn't made any specific commitments about Young's proposed Conservation and Reinvestment Act.
1/27/01 CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY - CONSERVATION BILL'S BACKERS COURT BUSH - STEVENS WILL OPPOSE CARA AGAIN:  "I just don't see any reason to permanently set aside part of the cash flow when we know we've got a problem if this recession continues," Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said Jan. 23. "1 just don't know how soon we could get to another CARA debate."
1/25/01 SETH LINDEN - MSNBC-KTUU (Anchorage Channel 2 TV) - YOUNG PUSHES CARA MEASURE - ãWe like part of Youngâs approach,ä Dana Wolf of the Sierra Club said.
1/25/01 SAM BISHOP - Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner ö YOUNG REINTRODUCES LANDS BILL - Reps. Don Young and John Dingell on Monday asked President Bush to support a $45 billion commitment to land purchases and other projects that fizzled in the U.S. Senate last year.
1/24/01 ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE - MSNBC - BUSH ASKED TO BACK CONSERVATION BILL - REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS HAD AGREED TO IT LAST YEAR -  Two key Capitol Hill lawmakers have asked President George W. Bush to support a landmark environmental bill that former President Bill Clinton had hoped to sign into law during his final months in the White House.
1/21/01 EDITORIAL - Anchorage Daily News - BETTER THAN NOTHING; CARA GETS EVEN LIGHTER; AND SO DOES ALASKA'S SHARE
1/18/01 ELIZABETH MANNING - Anchorage Daily News - CARA FUNDING SHRINKS; TALLY: Alaska is likely to get $50 million instead of $85 million - The Murkowski - Young "CARA lite" is lighter than first announced...Murkowski had announced Alaska would get about $85 million in new federal funding this year. Now it appears the state may get closer to $50 million.
OLDER  GO TO LAST HALF 2000 SOURCES

Be informed! Don't allow yourself to be snowed by CARA.

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