Montana land grab, papers concealed, Governor involved.
By Kerry White
The Secretary of Agriculture, both Montana U.S. Senators, Governor Schweitzer, the Chairman of the Presidents Council on Environmental Quality and the head of the National Park Service where the featured guests at a gathering at the Rolling Stone Ranch outside Ovando Montana.
The event was held the day before the public listening sessions on the President’s new initiative, “America’s Great Outdoors”, billed as a new way to connect youth to the outdoors but in reality it’s a private property land grab resulting in further introduction of diseased wildlife and large carnivores to our Montana landscape.
The meeting came as a response to the leaked memos from the Department of Interior where the Treasured Landscapes Initiative was exposed as a back door scheme to create another 6.5 million acre National Monument in Montana. The emails show this project has been in the works for a long time.
Reports from land owners in the targeted area reveal tactics of intimidation and harassment from individuals representing the American Prairie Foundation, a spin off of the WWF(World Wildlife Fund) and supported by the Nature Conservancy. These groups along with many other environmental organizations are known for collecting billions of dollars from filing lawsuits and collecting under the EAJA (Equal Access to Justice Act). The American Prairie Foundation has raised 23 million dollars over the last 8 years for the Treasured Landscape Initiative project.
There were four maps presented at the Ovando meeting which were very telling as I will explain. The legends on the maps were colored to show the current National Parks, wilderness areas and targeted conservation areas. There was a color on the legend that was identified as “private and state school trust land”. The maps clearly made no distinction of there being any property which was privately owned. The legend would mislead anyone into thinking all of these areas were completely public domain.
There has never been any secret about environmental organizations pushing their agenda with misleading and false information. The only difference we are seeing today is to how blatant they have become with this tactic. The climate in D.C. seems to be right for these organizations to assemble a plan to take private property through Monument designations and possibly succeed.
This is no longer about a save the environment issue but has become about money. The business of environmental protection puts organizations in the position to create a false crisis in an effort to raise money from the unsuspecting public. Pictures of defenseless and suffering animals followed by a plea for funding have allowed these groups the finances needed to buy political power. The hoax of global warming has made millions if not billions for Al Gore.
All this in the name of “restoration and conservation” which are the current buzz words along with “preservation, protection, collaboration, partnerships and cooperation” which fool the general public into thinking by giving to these organization they may in fact save the world. Nothing could be further from the truth when in fact these donations to environmental groups are being used to remove people from the land, reduce our ability to become energy independent, and ultimately reduce our quality of life.
The Treasured Landscapes Initiative (TLI) is only one of the latest schemes in Montana to take private property. The Department of Interior leaked some information on this TLI proposal and it remains to be seen whether the people in Montana will allow the TLI to continue to move forward. Below is a map and acreage targeted for the proposed TLI.
To understand how this came about one would need to start a few months back. In August of 2009, Martha Kauffman of the World Wildlife fund contacted Nate Hundt of the USFWS (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) to submit a proposal to create 2 National Monuments in Montana. Both of these monuments are close to Malta and their area extends north to the interior of Canada encompassing more than 6.5 million acres of which two thirds is in private land ownership and is currently being grazed by domestic livestock or cropped.
Move forward to September of 2009 when Gina DeFerrari, senior policy advisor for Northern Great Plains program/WWF (World Wildlife Fund), sent an email to Hed Farquhar with the DOI (Department of Interior) which included the following:
“You had asked how much of the BLM lands are under grazing allotments, and the answer is virtually all of them.”
This means that the entire 6.5 million acres of grass land targeted for monument designation has active grazing allotments which ranchers can not survive without. The leaked emails reveal these radical environmental groups are promoting removal by retirement or purchase of all grazing permits as referenced in the following excerpt from the same September 9th email:
“As for the status of those allotments and when ther’re coming up for renewal, we don’t have access to that information, but hopefully you’ll be able to obtain it from the BLM folks.”
A clear indication the DOI was doing favors for the WWF in promoting the Treasured Landscape Initiative. In fact below is a copy of an August 2009 email sent from Ken to his team. Not hard to make the connection between Ken and Ken Salazar
Senator Baucus and Senator Tester were surely in the loop with the inclusion of their names in the above email and also the President.
The September 9, 2009 email from Gina DeFerrari with WWF to Ned Farquhar with DOI also included the following:
“You had asked where Governor Schweitzer’s ranch is – it’s in Judith Basin County, which is on the western boundary of the Northern Great Plains ecoregion, as we define it, but outside these two landscapes.”
This indicates the DOI was concerned the Montana Governor’s ranch may be included in this land grab and wanted to make sure it was outside the targeted area. It may be that some of the withheld documents will include communication between Governor Schweitzer and the DOI on this issue.
If it is important that the Montana Governor’s ranch is located outside of the Monument designation wouldn’t it be fair to afford other private property owners the same treatment. The Governor has a history of coming after private property to expand bison populations as CBU has him on video when he threatened the private property owners around Yellowstone Park with eminent domain and the taking of their private property to allow brucellosis infected bison to leave the Park.
The meeting on Tuesday, June 1st at the Rolling Stone Ranch included a field trip sponsored by Senator Tester and Senator Baucus as shown in a travel release from Janice Williams. This meeting really showed the horse power behind the environmental movement in Montana. The attendees of this meeting where the high rollers from environmental organizations and government agencies who patted themselves on the back all day for their accomplishments of removing people from the land under the disguise of preservation and protection.
Good afternoon,
For your information, Harris Sherman, Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment will attend a field trip sponsored by Senator Baucus & Senator Tester on America’s Great Outdoors (AGO) located in the Blackfoot Valley, in Missoula, Montana on June 1, 2010 and attend the America’s Great Outdoors Listening Session, the morning of June 2, 2010. Also, attending the AGO Listening Session is Jay Jensen, Deputy Under Secretary, NRE. Mr. Jensen will be representing USDA at the breakout session.
When the memos were leaked by the DOI, the Senators from Montana began to feel the heat from numerous phone calls and emails when U.S. House of Representative members led by Washington State Representative Doc Hastings demanded release of the secret communications regarding the Treasured Landscape Initiative from the DOI. The DOI responded with just over 250 documents released out of over 3000. Washington State Representative Doc Hastings has been on Fox News about this issue and Representative Rehberg has joined the fight to obtain these documents along with the Western Congressional Caucus.
The below email shows Senator Tester taking heat for the leaked memos and even though the Senator was aware of the Treasured Landscape Initiative in August of 2009 when he met with Secretary Salazar, he would try to cover up his involvement by the release a press statement which would make it look like he was in the dark on this plan and wanted public involvement.
If Senator Tester truly wanted transparency and public disclosure of this issue he would request the release of the remaining documents from the DOI. It was clear at the Ovando meeting that a very few individuals have great influence in our government by donating dollars. Senator Tester as an example collected over 70% of his Senate election campaign money from out of state.
The heat Senator Tester and others were getting became the driver behind the meeting in Ovando and the 3 listening sessions which followed on June 2nd. The problem results when these listening sessions will only be dog and pony shows in an effort by the administration and our Senators to then claim they came, they listened and then acted to take private property for the Treasured Landscape Initiative which will be well orchestrated by the D.C. staff of these agencies and facilitated by Montana’s Governor and both Montana U.S. Senators.
The question still remains whether the people of Montana will accept this deception and the cover-up from our elected officials and government agencies or will we demand full disclosure and an investigation into the Treasured Landscape Initiative.
CBU has reviewed several of the 250 or so released documents and all of these are linked on Representative Rehberg’s website. We must push for the release of the remaining documents!
Many questions remain unanswered and the local governments and private property owners in the targeted area need the help of all Montanans. This land grab of property by the Federal government has clearly been developed behind closed doors and out of public view. The entire project by this administration to create additional National Monuments in the western United States will also include areas outside Montana and could affect more than 23 million acres. Much like what President Clinton did in the last days of his presidency when he signed the Roadless Rule, President Obama under the authority of the 1906 Antiquities Act can, by the stroke of a pen, create National Monuments. The 3 meetings in Montana on June 2nd are being held in Bozeman, Helena and Missoula, far from the area affected. Additional meetings on this issue need to be scheduled in other areas of Montana such as Billings, Great Falls and Malta to allow the people closer to the targeted area and which are most affected the opportunity to attend and also be heard. We all must contact Senator Tester and Senator Baucus to request the remaining communications be released and additional hearings be held. Everyone must contact the Department of Interior and Department of Agriculture opposing this new Monument designation and the secrecy in which it has been developed. Back room deals between environmental organizations and our government agencies in an effort to take private property should be unacceptable and not tolerated. Governor Schweitzer should come forward and explain his involvement in this issue. Was he aware of the Treasured Landscape Initiative and when? Did he have concern his ranch would be included in this Monument?
The meeting on the Rolling Stone Ranch was announced to the public on the Thursday before the Memorial Day weekend. This was very short notice for anyone from the public wishing to attend. Not only does it appear this meeting was for those dedicated to taking private property but the timing of this meeting was such that those affected property owners were very busy with things like spring planting, branding and moving cattle to spring ranges. Many of the people attending flew in from out of state and it’s clear that many environmental group representatives where aware of this meeting far in advance of the Thursday release of the meeting to the general public. The total lack of transparency with this Monument designation agenda is unacceptable. The people must demand better from our government!
