Enemies at our Gates

Agency Blitzkrieg

Enemies at our Gates

Congressional emasculation

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            On a recent drive across our neighboring ranch, the Corralitos, four vehicles were parked along the asphalt road providing access to the FAA radar site on Magdalena Peak. Each had at least one occupant puttering around within a hefty rock throw from the road shoulder. The first fellow was looking for hognose snakes. The second fellow was seeking Sonoran box turtles. A third person was looking for a particular primrose, and the fourth … well, the fourth wasn’t interested in talking to a rancher.

            When asked why and what they were seeking, their answers were all vaguely connected. Each individual had a hobby of seeking a particular species. Only one of the vehicles was from New Mexico. Since it was early morning, it was obvious that those vehicles from Arizona hadn’t just arrived. These hobbyists or their support mechanism were spending money pursuing their interests. A hobbyist seeking specific and esoteric species indicators isn’t the run of the mill Joe Taxpayer. With their hydration packs, REI sourced hiking shoes, and sunbonnets, these folks were on a mission.

            Is there a soul out there who will be surprised if and when the next endangered species is suddenly discovered on the Corralitos?

            From Rachel’s perusals this week

            Notwithstanding the Federal Register announcements of planned taxpayer assaults coming to a woodlot nearest you this week, the federal agency blitzkrieg on local customs and culture was operating at feverish pitch. Doc Hastings and Rob Bishop and their House Natural Resources Committee were grilling another set of agency mouthpieces in an attempt to rein in environmental terror that has submersed the West.

            No longer, though, is it just the Forest Service, Park Service, BLM, or USFWS that is lying to those elected sages. The EPA has made it to the show. This week they were on the hot seat along with the Army Corps of Engineers trying to explain why their administrators thought they had the authority to write regulations allowing the EPA to expand its authority over Corps dams nationwide. The dustup came from another closed door settlement with a group that favors the removal of all dams, The Columbia River Keeper. Mutt (EPA) and Jeff (ACE) even agreed to pay the attorney fees for the plaintiffs in the blacked out agreement.

Joe Taxpayer got hung with another $140,000 for the honor of being hosed in two directions. He is going to have to pay for replenishing the war chest of the Keepers to come at him from another angle, and he is going to have to face the music of higher electric bills, less irrigation service, less flood control assurance and more regulatory burden for inland navigation allowances.

The behind the doors settlements have, in themselves, become a proxy for legislative actions. Dovetailed with executive orders, the Administration is doubling down on agenda demands and the proliferation of liberal causes. Endangered species protection has long been a showcase feature. With a 98% failure rate and no caps on the expense of dereliction, ESA has become a fully intact Trojan horse. It is the go-to-tool to destroy western heritage industries and it is succeeding. The Mexican Wolf recovery is a primary example.

On August 11 and again on August 13, citizens in the crosshairs of this rural cleansing debacle faithfully attended wolf hearings in Pinetop, Arizona and T or C, New Mexico. They were there to defend their investments and their heritage in the undeterred USFWS expansion of the wolf recovery program. Set forth as a public hearing, each of the gatherings was no public hearing. They were sessions whereby USFWS told the rural subjects what was going to take place. Regardless of what was offered or demanded by citizenry affected by the wolf-dog hybrid program, marching orders have already been set in concrete. The agency has until January 12, 2015 to comply with the backroom writ set forth by the Center for Biological Diversity on what form the recovery plan will take. The meetings were simply done to document procedures. USFWS is going to expand the wolf recovery regardless of any objection by the public or the few state agencies that are starting to act like grownups. Marching orders have been served and the power brokers do not sit in Congress.

Some 15 state Attorney Generals met in Iowa challenging the EPA on the manipulation of more regulatory expansion. At issue was the narrowing of exemptions to Agriculture through the Clean Water Act. The vehicle is to demand DOA NRCS project standards for all future private and public lands conservation practices. That means that before a water gap can be rebuilt across an arroyo after being washed out by a summer rain, the reconstruction must pass muster for NRCS standards. Since the water gap spans flood waters that leave the landowner’s premises, that citizen must submit his actions to federal specs.

There are at least 56 exemptions for Agriculture that will impacted by this regulatory rewrite.

“Some mistakenly think that this means additional federal standards, but that is wrong,” contended EPA administrator, Gina McCarty.

“Conservation practices are not federal regs,” she continued. “They just provide a roadmap to make sure they squeeze all they can out of the (conservation) practices.”

Burn, Baby, burn

While the Obama juggernaut is intent on regulating carbon based energies out of existence, an interesting Stanford study has surfaced.

With horrors of horrors, it has been discovered that wildfires are bigger contributors to climate change than previously admitted. In fact, they contribute at least 1.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Whether that impacts global warming or not time will tell, but Stanford research does estimate that 250,000 deaths each year are attributable to the smoke, soot, and free carbon released in these conflagrations.

Who is responsible for this annual debacle?

Take a guess, but first a hint. The burn rates on federal lands now rivals the monstrous burn years of 1911 and 1912 when nearly 40% of the continental United States burned. Over the last half of the 20^th Century, the agencies, led by the Forest Service, began a ludicrous environmental miscalculation of no logging, no control burns of consequence, no thinning, no cattle, no herbicides, no mechanical removal, and no complexity of grazing. The result is the once productive national forests and public lands are on a glide path toward oblivion.

And, now we know the agency is killing people along with trees.

The latter can be measured. Aspen, once considered a keystone species of our western forests, is supremely important to the system. In parts of the northwest, the trees once covered 40% of the forested areas. That has declined fully 60% (Arizona has experienced a whopping 90% decline). A new study now reveals that the lack of fire and the encroachment of conifers is the culprit. The study fails to suggest or acknowledge that weakened stands of trees are highly susceptible to killing wildfires.

The Forest Service, in its allegiance to all things environmental, is destroying wildlife and a once healthy ecosystem. It and they … are a debacle of epic proportions.

Leadership vacuum

Meanwhile, the House chairs are droning on and on about the Administration’s agenda and back room dealing with the environmental brokers. Those green interceders control the strings and the short hairs, and … we sit out here in the hail storm and take the thrust of the outcome.

The Senate, with its gift of the Nevada magi, Harry Reid, fans the fires of western polarization. They remain impervious to the tyranny they foster and dispense, and … we sit out here in the hail storm and take the thrust of the outcome.

The suggestion that these people need to go is worn and blasé.

There are only 24 members of both chambers of Congress who should receive our thanks and continued support in the attempt to rein in this crisis. They are the 2014 elected members with marks of 80 and above when graded on the basis of adherence to "the constitutional principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, national sovereignty, and a traditional foreign policy of avoiding foreign entanglements." No longer is a C an acceptable grade. There are only nine honor students that grade 90 and above and they are the only folks that should be considered for higher office. Their names are McClintock, Broun, Cruz, Huelskamp, Paul, Massie, Stockman, Lee, and Amash.

The rest are what they are … politically franchised, frivolous, and replaceable fixtures. They are, at best, position occupiers, and, at worst, destroyers of the fabric of our lives and the pillars of our foundation. We cannot trust their oaths nor condone their fraudulent leadership incapacity. They are incapable of altering the actions of agencies that are destroying our customs and culture, as … we sit out here in the hail storm and take the thrust of the outcome.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from New Mexico.