Contacts

New Senate Omnibus Lands Bill, House Corps and

EPA Wetlands Land Grab

Congress out until after Labor Day and Conventions.

You Must See Your Senators and Congressman During The August September Recess - Call, Fax and E-mail too.

A lot of decisions will be made by your Senators and Congressman in the next several weeks.

Both your Senators and your Congressman are likely to be in your area sometime during the August-September Congressional Recess.

You must visit them if you can, call, fax and e-mail them about the new Omnibus Federal Lands Bill (S 3213). It includes over 90 separate bills including the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) that would put into law the Bruce Babbitt lockup of 26,000,000 acres of BLM land.

The Corps of Engineers and EPA Wetlands Land Grab bill (HR 2421 - S 1870) will face a rushed vote in Committee and an effort to sneak it on to the floor of the House.

Action Items below.

You should call both your Senators and your Congressman to ask for their Congressional Recess Schedule that will run until after Labor Day.

Votes will be delayed until after the Democrat and Republican Conventions. You may call any Senator at (202) 224-3121 to get the dates for meetings in your area.

When you call, make sure you tell them you oppose the Senate Omnibus Federal Lands Bill (S 3213). Over 90 bills are stuffed in this one bill including lots of new Wilderness. All BLM National Monuments and Wild and Scenic Rivers will be affected.

A few of the 90 bills may be good but a lot are bad. Get a commitment from your Senator to oppose the Omnibus Federal lands bill simply because this is no way to run a government.

There is no way you Senator will read this whole bill. It is not likely his staff can read it. The result is a disaster for you.

To meet with your Representative, call (202) 225-3121. You must get your neighbors and friends to go to a meeting also. Attend any public meetings in your area.

Because of the looming election, Congress will be in a rush when they come back to pass legislation and they'll be very short of time.

You can be sure they will not have time to read carefully the many bills they will have to act on. This is the time when bad legislation that hurts you passes Congress in the dark of night when everybody is rushed and staff is distracted.

When Congress comes back the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will likely vote on HR 2421, the Clean Water Restoration Act (We call it the Corps of Engineers/EPA Land Grab bill).

That is the Democrat effort to reverse two Supreme Court Wetlands decisions favorable to private property owners and seize control of all US watersheds.

HR 2421 would give control over Wetlands and other lands back to the Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

That means national land use controls. The Corps of Engineers and EPA would control your property.

The full Senate will vote after Labor Day on S 3213 (new Omnibus Federal Lands Bill), the giant Public Land Management Act of 2008 which includes the BLM National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS), numerous new Wilderness areas and 90 other Federal lands and park bills put together as one giant

omnibus bill.

Think of it as the Omnibus Federal lands, BLM NLCS and Wilderness Bill, S3213 or just Senate Omnibus Federal Lands Bill.

You must attend any meetings your Senators hold in the state and make it clear that passing 90 bills in one Omnibus Public Lands Bill (S 3213) is not the way to do business. Insist that they read each bill and that each bill should be voted on separately.

The NLCS was created in 2000 by Bruce Babbitt. The NLCS has stayed quietly in the weeds for eight years with advocates waiting until they could sneak it through Congress and make it permanent.

The NLCS will lay a preservationist National Park type regulatory overlay over 26,000,000 acres of BLM land including many National Monuments, Wild and Scenic Rivers, Wilderness Study Areas and much more. It threatens access and use by ranchers, miners, forestry advocates, recreationists and many other Federal land users. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) has said she will add over 6,000,000 acres of the California Desert to it. So the total will actually be 32,000,000 acres. And that is just one bill of 90 bills included in S 3213.

Making all the Wilderness Study Areas into Wilderness is a particularly troubling part of S 3213 because they have not gone through the regular Congressional process and examined carefully each area carefully state by state. The Senate Omnibus Federal Lands Bill (S 3213) appears to designate many Wilderness Study Areas as Wilderness without due process.

The votes on S 3213 and HR 2421 will come while you're busy and distracted by fall activities. There will be so many bills rushed to a vote that many Senators and Congressmen will not have time to read them.

That means your friends in Congress could easily allow bills to pass that would threaten you and not be aware of it or they could have a bill in the Omnibus Bill and are deliberately looking the other way on the rest of the bills. That is the whole reason for the Omnibus Bill process. They can hide bad bills because nobody gets time to read everything.

That is what makes these Omnibus Bills so dangerous. Your Senator may have a bill or two in the Omnibus Bill. So he or she looks the other way on bills that might be objectionable under normal circumstances.

You must get your Senator to promise they will not allow bad bills to go through just to pass a bill for your state. Especially the NLCS (National Landscape Conservation System). That must be taken out of the Omnibus bill. You can do that by putting pressure on your Senator. Call your neighbors and friends to urge them to call to oppose the NLCS also.

I cannot stress too strongly how critical your calls, faxes and e-mails are to your Congressman and both Senators during the coming weeks opposing the Senate Omnibus Lands Bill (S 3213) and HR 2421, the Wetlands Corps of Engineers EPA land grab in the House.

Your Senators and Congressman must hear from you during the August-September Recess.

You're facing an unbelievable threat that only you can defeat. Your calls, e-mails, faxes and other contacts to your Senators and Representatives can really make a difference now.

If your legislators get enough calls, they are so busy they are likely to put the threatening bills away until they have more time to think about them. That also gives you more time to fight them. Stop S 3213, the Senate

Omnibus bill and the House Corps of Engineers EPA Wetlands Land Grab bill HR 2421.

Action Items:

-----1. Forward this message to as many people as you can quickly.

-----2. You must call, fax or e-mail your Congressional Representative at (202) 225-3121 to ask for his or her August-September schedule when he or she will be back in your district. The Congressional August recess runs until just after Labor Day. They will only have three weeks then before they adjourn to prepare for the election. Do not use US Mail because of the Anthrax inspections.

Make sure you tell your Representative that you oppose the giant Wetlands Corps of Engineers EPA Watershed Land Grab Bill, HR 2421 (The official name is the Clean Water Restoration Act). Ask for a written confirmation of your phone call when you call. You should also ask for the e-mail and fax number

of the staff person who handles Wetlands and keep that information for future reference.

-----3. Call, fax or e-mail both your Senators and ask for their August to September schedule back in your state. Make sure you ask for the staff person who handles Federal land issues, BLM, Wilderness and Park issues. Get their e-mail and fax number. All Senators may be called at (202) 224-3121.

Make it clear that you oppose the new Omnibus Federal Lands Bill (S 3213) including the 26,000,000 acre BLM NLCS and all the new Wilderness areas. Senator Feinstein (D-CA) will try to add an additional 6,000,000 acres of the California Desert to the NLCS. Again, ask for the e-mail and fax address of the staff person and be sure to send a letter to both your Senators at that address opposing S 3213. Be sure to fax your letter. Regular mail is too slow.

Everyone should oppose this new way the Senate is passing bills by packaging them into huge omnibus bills where so many Senators have a piece of the action that nobody looks closely at the other provisions. Tell them you want votes on each individual bill and they should read each bill.

Make sure you tell them you will be monitoring how they vote. The League of Private Property Voters will send you a scorecard so you will know whether your Senators voted yes or no on the Omnibus Federal Lands Bill (S 3213).

-----4. Make copies of this message to give a copy to your friends, neighbors and business associates.

Stop HR 2421, The Clean Water Restoration Act. HR 2421 is really a massive Federal land and watershed power grab. It must be stopped. It will use "wetlands," the Corps of Engineers and EPA to take control over every farm, ranch, and piece of private property with any water on it or even if you only engage in activities that might affect water.

It expands the authority of the Federal government under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 (Clean Water Act) to include all waters of the U.S. and activities affecting these waters. It drops the limitation of the original bill to just Navigable waters. It will give the Corps of Engineers and EPA control over your land. You'll get tied up in a nightmare of red tape and bureaucracy.

Help stop the Senate Omnibus Land Bill, S 3213 that is the giant new Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2008. It includes the BLM National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS), new Wilderness areas, all BLM National Monuments and many other Federal lands and parks bills.

Why you and American Land Rights (ALRA) should be on the same team.

-----ALRA is your political insurance policy;

-----ALRA has a powerful record of accomplishment in Congress;

-----Through ALRA, your voice is loudly heard in Washington, DC;

-----ALRA is known for its aggressive protection of members' rights;

-----You have access to our Washington, DC office.

-----You have a full time Headquarters in Battle Ground, Wash. to help you;

-----Hundreds of thousands of allies in ALRA e-mail, fax and mail lists to help you win;

-----ALRA offers crisis management services to members and allies;

-----Day-to-day consulting on land use and environmental issues is available; and

-----Grassroots organizing and coalition building to help you save your property or interest.

Over $90,000 must be raised by ALRA quickly to help defeat S 3213 and HR 2421. Your support is critical to pay to send letters, faxes and e-mails to landowners and Federal land users nationwide to stop these two terrible land grab bills.

You can go to www.landrights.org to join the American Land Rights Association online or make a contribution.

Sincerely,

Chuck Cushman

American Land Rights Association

(360) 687-3087

ccushman@pacifier.com