Mizheekayk

Millions for ATVs but health care has to wait?

2008-06-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

The 2008 MN Legislative forked out millions to the ATV industry in addition to the near 6 million projected annually prior to the 08 session!

One wonders what these millions could have done for the children, the aged and the poor in our state. While legislators pilfer millions from state gas taxes they cut funding for schools, health care and rob the state of much needed road repair money.

+Increase in ATV un-refunded gas tax from .15 to .27, adding an
additional $590,000 in FY2009, $1.09 million in FY2010 and $1.12
Million in FY2011 and continue indefinitely.
+ $300,000 per biennium added to DNR Trails and Waterways Division
for trail development, maintenance, and operations. This new
money will further open the new trails from the forest classification
process.
+ $70,000 per biennium added to the grant-in-aid account.
+ $370,000 per biennium for grants to local law enforcement for OHV
related enforcement and education.
+ $100,000 in one time money to make the "Moose Trail" in Hoyt Lakes
, MN into a multi-use trail. It is currently a snowmobile trail,
but will be converted into an OHV-snowmobile trail.
+ $400,000 ($700,000 total OHV & Snowmobile funding) in one time
money to complete two culverts for added connectivity of existing
trails to the Virginia OHV Park . This is a shared effort with
MN4WD, ARMCA, and MNUSA. There is still some property around
the Virginia rec site that needs to be acquired, and this money
cannot be spent until that land is acquired.
= Passing the "Forests for the Future" Program which erodes the meaning of conservation easements. The Forests for the Future program is a forest legacy program that was appropriated money to lessen the impact of forest parceling by acquiring
conservation easements. These easements now can include ATV recreational use as an option for forest use and which will indeed divide the forests with trails.
= Fighting against citizen's attempts
to repeal the un-refunded gas tax program for ATV's, snowmobiles,
boats, OHM's, and OHV's. The bill never received a hearing and died.
=Fighting against citizen groups request for all new ATV
revenue to be appropriated to DNR Enforcement. No bill ever
received a hearing in committee and died.
= Fighting against a bill that would expand the ability for law
enforcement to confiscate ATV's

The ATV un-refunded gas tax passed early in session and was signed into law. This finally brings added millions to OHV coffers.. ATVAM fought for 3 years to pass this contentious piece of legislation. This formula increase, coupled with the veto-override of the transportation bill allowed the ATV account access to more money that they so desperately fought for to continue pushing ATVs in Minnesota.

The bill introduced to repeal the un-refunded gas tax program was scheduled to be given an informational hearing in the House, but was soon cancelled. The lobbyists from all OHV groups, MNUSA, boating representatives, will be working together as this legislation will be back again next year, and probably for many years to come. They will opposition and really continue to pressure elected officials to support this program.

There was a bill introduced that would bring MN under the CA Emission laws, thus, placing us under the control of a council in CA. No one was sure if this affected motorcycles, or off road motorcycles. It made us very nervous how it would affect the performance and price of ATV's, and we helped lobby against its passage. The bill was killed in the Senate Jobs, and Economic Development Committee. There was an exception placed in the house version exempting ATV's from the law.

the "20 yard rule" for ATV grouse hunting was repealed in one of the last legislative bills that passed at the capitol.

Oberstar rebuts

2007-07-11T08:14:00.001-07:00

Misinformation, falsehoods

Submitted by Journal Staff on July 10, 2007 - 11:59am.
Filed under:

Editorials

By Jim Oberstar, U.S. Representative

There are times when it can be downright discouraging to see how some groups and organizations will resort to misinformation and even outright falsehood in order to advance a political agenda. These groups simply do not understand that people in Minnesota are not easily fooled and will not be misled when they have access to the hard facts.

Opponents of my proposal to fix the Clean Water Act after it was damaged by two Supreme Court rulings, are ignoring an irrefutable fact: water flows downhill. Even the smallest rivers and streams flow into larger bodies of water, while wetlands are critical to preventing floods and filtering ground water. Unfortunately, those facts are not stopping opponents of clean water regulation from waging a negative campaign of distortions against the Clean Water Restoration Act of 2007.

Here are the facts about CWRA. It restores the Clean Water Act’s jurisdiction over our rivers, streams, and wetlands after much of that protection was removed by two Supreme Court rulings. Nationally, two thirds of states do not have any laws on the books to protect fresh water wetlands; five states have no water pollution laws at all.

Minnesota’s Wetlands Conservation Act is more restrictive than the Federal Clean Water Act and this legislation will not change that balance in our state. The Minnesota DNR will continue to have the final word on who is, or is not granted a permit. The same situation exists with the Federal Clean Air Act; again, Minnesota’s laws are tougher than the federal standards.

However, the Supreme Court rulings have added new paperwork and red-tape to the process of getting a permit. On a case-by-case basis, the Army Corps of Engineers must now determine if all wetlands applications fall under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act before a property owner can even begin a permit application. Property owners must fill out a 12-page form while consulting an 86-page instructions booklet, and they can expect the time it takes to get a permit to be increased by up to three months. CWRA eliminates this confusing battery of paperwork.

Without CWRA we can expect to see a flurry of lawsuits. The most recent Supreme Court ruling that led to the current regulatory mess was a 4-1-4 split decision, with four justices ruling that the Clean Water Act should not cover all of our waters, and four ruling that it should. Justice Kennedy tried to compromise with his own opinion calling for the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to find a “significant nexus” connecting the waterway to a “navigable water” before they can enforce the Clean Water Act. This is a recipe for confusion, delay, and litigation.

The campaign being waged against CWRA is based on false premises and wild speculation. Pro-industry and anti-government groups that have been opposed to any federal pollution regulation have claimed that this legislation will have the federal government harassing property owners.

CWRA also preserves the exemptions for farming, logging, mining and many other business related activities that were included in the original Clean Water Act.

My bill specifically restores the authority of the Clean Water Act. It will allow the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to go back to the rules and guidance they have used to enforce the Clean Water Act for the last 30 years. Those rules cleaned up our rivers, streams, and lakes. They were in place during the 1990s, the longest sustained period of economic growth in our nation’s history. It’s time to put them back to work protecting our waters for our children and grandchildren.

Your vote:

Anti environmental movement explored further

2007-07-11T08:09:00.001-07:00

http://www.freedom.org/news/200610/27/parmeter.phtmlLetter to the Editor:

By Don Parmeter

October 27, 2006

Letter to the Editor Sent to all dailies and weeklies in 8th CD plus Minneapolis Star and St. Paul Pioneer Press.

October 23, 2006

To the Editor:

Rod Grams deserves tremendous praise from Minnesota citizens, whether party-affiliated or independent, for exposing a radical and unprecedented expansion of federal control sponsored by 8th District Congressman James Oberstar. The bill, H.R. 1356, know as the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act, proposes to expand the jurisdiction of the federal government over all waters and affected lands in the country.

The bill would broaden federal authority by amending the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to include "all waters" of the United States instead of "navigable waters." According to the bill, this would include:

"... lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds, and all impoundments of the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters, or activities affecting these waters, are subject to the legislative power of Congress under the Constitution."

There is perhaps no district in the nation that would be more impacted by this legislation than the 8th District of Minnesota, which Mr. Oberstar represents. Water exists virtually everywhere, and it's hard to conceive of any type of human activity that wouldn't be covered. For example, over half of all of Minnesota's wetlands are located within the 8th District.

That Congressman Oberstar would consider being the lead sponsor of such a bill is almost inconceivable. That he would do it without public hearings or meetings in his own district is beyond comprehension. There are undoubtedly national special interest groups pressuring Congress to support this kind of legislation. But, I am not aware of any local elected body or organization within the 8th District that has openly supported the bill. I doubt that most are even aware of it.

Make no mistake, this bill is not about environmental protection. It is about unprecedented federal control of land, water and people. Its purpose, at least in part, is to overturn recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that went in favor of local citizens.

Many would assume that such a radical bill would have no chance of passing. This is a bad assumption, since there are already 167 co-sponsors of the bill. It is significant to note that other Congressmen (from both political parties) representing rural Minnesota oppose Oberstar's bill.

I don't know if Mr. Oberstar is simply out of touch with his constituents, or if he simply believes he is untouchable. Whatever the reason, citizens of the 8th District(and other districts and states, for that matter), owe Rod Grams a debt of gratitude for bringing this legislation to light. People of the 8th District can express that gratitude at the polls on November 7th.

Don Parmeter
International Falls, MN
(218)285-7002

Wise Use

2007-07-10T22:58:00.000-07:00

The Wise Use Movement

Right-Wing Anti-Environmentalism

by William Kevin Burke

http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v07n2/wiseuse.html

In the last days of the 1992 presidential campaign, George Bush denounced "environmental extremists" who sought to lock up natural resources and destroy the American way of life. At the heart of this imagined green conspiracy was the "Ozone Man," Senator Al Gore Jr., author of Earth in the Balance. Bush's attack on environmentalism failed to save his candidacy, but it was a high water mark for the political influence of the "Wise Use" movement, a network of loosely allied right-wing grassroots and corporate interest groups dedicated to attacking the environmental movement and promoting unfettered resource exploitation.

New organizing opportunities and media exposure of the movement's less savory connections have caused constant splintering within the movement. At present, the best way to recognize Wise Use groups is by the policies they support. Therefore, Wise Use will be used here to describe all organizations that promote the core Wise Use agenda: removing present environmental protections and preventing future environmental reforms in order to benefit the economic interests of the organization's members or funders.

Five years ago Wise Use was just the latest fundraising concept of two political entrepreneurs: Ron Arnold and Alan Gottlieb. Arnold once worked for the Sierra Club in Washington State. He has told reporters that he helped organize teaching expeditions to areas that became the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area. Alan Gottlieb is a professional fundraiser who has generated millions for various right-wing causes.

Wise Use groups are often funded by timber, mining, and chemical companies. In return, they claim, loudly, that the well-documented hole in the ozone layer doesn't exist, that carcinogenic chemicals in the air and water don't harm anyone, and that trees won't grow properly unless forests are clear-cut, with government subsidies. Wise Use proponents were buffeted by Bush's defeat and by media exposure of the movement's founders' connections to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church network (tainted by charges of cultism and theocratic neo-fascism), but the movement has quickly rebounded. In every state of the US, relentless Wise Use disinformation campaigns about the purpose and meaning of environmental laws are building a grassroots constituency. To Wise Users, environmentalists are pagans, eco-nazis, and communists who must be fought with shouts and threats.

Environmentalists often point to public opinion polls that show most Americans are willing to sacrifice some short-term economic gains to preserve nature. But the Wise Use movement is eroding the environmental consensus that dominated American politics from the Greenhouse Summer of 1988 until shortly after the media overload that greeted Earth Day 1990.

What's in a Name?

The term "Wise Use" was appropriated from the moderate conservationist tradition by movement founder Ron Arnold. In 1910, Gifford Pinchot, first head of the US Forest Service, called for national forestry policies based on the wise use of America's trees and minerals. That triggered a simmering feud between Pinchot and Sierra Club founder John Muir. Muir wanted to see wilderness valued for its own sake, as the spiritual center of the world. In theory, the current US system of combining national forests managed for resource extraction with wilderness areas managed for recreation is a compromise solution to this debate.

But Ron Arnold did not pick the term Wise Use because of an affinity to the moderate conservationism of Pinchot. In 1991, he told Outside magazine that he chose the phrase Wise Use because it was ambiguous and fit neatly in newspaper headlines. Such duplicitous and opportunistic tactics are a trademark of the Wise Use movement. "Facts don't matter; in politics perception is reality," Arnold told Outside.

For a number of years, Arnold was a registered agent for the American Freedom Coalition, a political offshoot of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. The American Freedom Coalition takes credit for funding the first Wise Use conference in 1988. Aside from telling Outside he is willing to ignore facts to achieve his goals, Arnold proclaims at every opportunity that his mission is to destroy the environmental movement. "We're mad as hell. We're dead serious. We're going to destroy them," he told the Portland Oregonian. In the spring of 1995, Arnold told a Vermont audience that Wise Users do not want to negotiate with environmentalists.

Ron Arnold's big career break coincided with the coming of the Reagan presidency and Arnold's own rapid swing to the right. In 1981, he co-authored At the Eye of the Storm, a flattering biography of James Watt that the former Secretary of the Interior helped edit. Watt's attempts to dismantle environmental regulation and open federal lands to logging and mining produced short-term gains for corporate interests, but the long-term result of such policies was public revulsion and the explosive growth of the environmental movement during the 1980s.

Arnold's movement-building was enhanced when he joined forces with Alan Gottlieb. Gottlieb's Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise (CDFE) reportedly takes in about $5 million per year through direct mail and telephone fundraising for a variety of right-wing causes. Gottlieb seems to possess a genius for dancing along the edge of legal business practices. He purchased the building that houses CDFE's headquarters with money from two of his own non-profit foundations, then transferred the building's title to his own name so he could charge his foundations over $8,000 per month in rent. Gottlieb also spent seven months in prison for tax evasion.

In 1988, Gottlieb published Ron Arnold's book, The Wise Use Agenda, which outlines their movement's goals and aims. Few environmentalists would find fault with the spirit behind this quote from The Wise Use Agenda: "[Wise Use's] founders [feel] that industrial development can be directed in ways that enhance the Earth, not destroy it." But the Agenda itself is basically a wish list for the resource extraction industries. The Wise Use movement seeks to open all federal lands to logging, mining, and the driving of off-road vehicles. Despite much rhetoric about seeking ecological balance and environmental solutions, almost the only environmental problem The Wise Use Agenda addresses rather than dismisses is the threat of global warming from the build-up of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere. The solution proposed is the immediate clear-cutting of the small portion of old growth timber left in the United States so that these forests can be replanted with young trees that will absorb more carbon dioxide.

Although the science cited by Wise Use sources is suspect, and their arguments are mostly retreads of corporate press releases, today nearly everyone on the right wants a piece of the Wise Use movement. Rush Limbaugh, Lyndon LaRouche, the National Farm Bureau Federation, and dozens of other organizations and public figures are adopting their own versions of Wise Use rhetoric.

Much of this popularity can be explained by the lingering economic recession of the early 1980s, which provided a receptive grassroots audience for the Wise Use claim that it is easier to force nature to adapt to current corporate policies than to encourage the growth of more environmentally sound ways of doing business. Wise Use pamphlets argue that extinction is a natural process; some species weren't meant to survive. The movement's signature public relations tactic is to frame complex environmental and economic issues in simple, scapegoating terms that benefit its corporate backers. In the movement's Pacific Northwest birthplace, Wise Users harp on a supposed battle for survival between spotted owls and the families of the men and women who make their livings harvesting and milling the old growth timber that is the owl's habitat. In preparation for President Clinton's forest summit in Portland, Oregon, Wise Use public relations experts ran seminars to teach loggers how to speak in sound bites. Messages such as "jobs versus owls" have been adapted to a variety of environmental issues and have helped spark an anti-green backlash that has defeated river protection efforts and threatens to open millions of acres of wilderness to resource extraction.

While attacking environmentalists, Wise Use statements borrow heavily from environmental rhetoric; this borrowed rhetoric often cloaks a self-serving economic agenda. The Oregon Lands Coalition in effect supports the timber industry by arguing that only people who cut down trees really love the wilderness. At the same time, the Wise Use movement opposes environmentalist efforts to find new careers for unemployed loggers who could be hired to begin restoring the stream beds ravaged by clear-cutting of forests.

Similarly, National Farm Bureau Federation publications repeatedly argue that farmers are the true stewards of the land. But the Farm Bureau lobbies for fewer restrictions on pesticide use and for the clearing of wetlands--not for government support for the alternative farming practices that the National Research Council's 1989 book, Alternative Agriculture, showed can reduce farming's impact on the environment while improving farmers' net incomes.

Both the National Farm Bureau Federation and the Oregon Lands Coalition later disavowed any association with Alan Gottlieb's Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise and the term Wise Use. Groups that portray themselves as moderate Wise Users, like the Farm Bureau and Alliance for America, now describe their approach with substitute terms like "multiple use," while still employing Ron Arnold's tactics and inviting him to speak at Wise Use conferences. This distancing is apparently due to Arnold's willingness to make extreme statements to the press and the baggage of his association with Rev. Moon's Unification Church.

"It shouldn't be surprising that there are these terminology wars, given that so much of this movement is about manipulating language and manipulating people's understanding of concepts like environmentalism," according to Tarso Ramos, who monitors Wise Use activity for the Western States Center in Portland, Oregon.

In fact, the Wise Use movement resorts to a bewildering range of subterfuges to mask its agenda. For instance, the developer-funded Environmental Conservation Organization and its member organization, the National Wetlands Coalition, want to make it easier for their funders to drain wetlands to build malls. To that end, Champion Paper and MCI fund the Evergreen Foundation, which spreads the word that forests need only clear-cutting and healthy doses of pesticides to become places of "beauty, peace and mystery."

In a similar example, the Sea Lion Defense Fund is the Alaska fishing industry's legal arm in its fight against government limits on harvests of pollock, one of the endangered sea lion's favorite foods. Oregonians for Food and Shelter and Vermont's Citizens for Property Rights cultivate a folksy grassroots image while promoting the agendas of developers or extractive industries. This was a tactic first advocated by Ron Arnold in a series of articles he wrote for Timber Management magazine in the early 1980s.

Alliance for America

Since the first corporate check arrived, the Wise Use movement has been split by debates over who will control organizing strategy and funds. "[Wise Use] is not a disciplined ideological coalition. It is a multifaceted movement. There are factions within it. They fight. The objectives of various players are very different. Coalitions can be tenuous, but they are very effective," says Tarso Ramos. The Oregon Lands Coalition (OLC) is dominated by timber interests but also includes the National Farm Bureau Federation, pro-pesticide groups, and land-use planning activists representing developers.

In 1991, the OLC became a national organization by creating the Alliance for America. The Alliance's stated purpose is to "put people back in the environmental equation." The means to this end is to enlist grassroots groups in each state to fight environmentalists on a wide variety of issues. In 1991 and 1992, the Alliance staged "Fly-ins for Freedom" that brought supporters to Washington, DC, to lobby on behalf of logging, mining, and ranching interests.

From its founding, the Alliance for America's purpose was to unify grassroots anti-environmentalist organizations in all 50 states. In the western states, where the movement was born, the Wise Users tend to be freedom-loving, right-wing libertarians, yet they spend much of their time and energy working to protect government subsidies for ranchers, miners, and loggers.

A well-worn joke describes the typical westerner's attitude toward the federal government as "go away and give me more money." Groups like the Oregon Lands Coalition and People for the West strive to preserve government privileges, such as below-cost sales of timber from federal lands and the 1872 mining law that lets mining companies lease government mineral rights for as little as $2.50.

A more subtle approach was required to build support for Wise Use groups in eastern states, where the Wise Use movement's natural audience, primarily rural landowners, was not so accustomed to government largesse. The Alliance for America quickly found a slogan for its efforts to organize east of the Mississippi: private property rights.

The Theme of Private Property Rights

The Wise Use movement argues that regulations protecting environmentally sensitive areas on private property are unconstitutional "takings." They cite the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution, which states in part: "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." That clause is the basis for the concept of eminent domain, which allows government entities to take land for public projects by paying property owners the land's fair market value.

Across the nation, the Wise Use movement is backing state legislation seeking to expand the legal concept of what constitutes a "government taking" to include all situations where possible profits from developing, mining, or logging private lands are limited by environmental regulations. The movement argues that if a regulatory agency wants to protect a wetland, for example, the agency must pay the wetlands owner what he or she might have made if the wetlands were drained in order to become a buildable site.

The private property rights strategy may prove Wise Use's best weapon. Despite their ability to draw attention and corporate money, western Wise Use organizations will remain vulnerable to negative press coverage because they are so often arguing for more government handouts for their corporate backers. But the call to protect private property rights from "government land grabs" or "unconstitutional takings" appeals strongly to rural landowners and small businesspeople, sectors of society that fear economic change and heavy-handed environmental reforms. "As an organizing strategy, takings is a kind of deviant genius," says Tarso Ramos. "It automatically puts environmentalists in the position of defending the federal government and appeals to anyone who has ever had any kind of negative experience with the federal government, which is a hell of a lot of people."

By the end of 1992, private property rights advocates had introduced legislation expanding the definition of takings in 27 states. If passed, these bills would rule that government regulatory actions, such as wetlands protection or even zoning restrictions, are "takings," and require that landowners be paid for the potential value of the land they lost due to government actions. A single lost takings case could bankrupt most state regulatory agencies. The takings movement would, if successful, effectively end environmental protection in the US. The only federal legal test of takings was Lucas v. South Carolina. Lucas, a developer, sued the state for the lost value of homes he had planned to build on land that South Carolina subsequently declared sensitive coastal habitat. The 1992 US Supreme Court ruling on the case is often trumpeted as a takings triumph by Wise Users, but was actually a split decision requiring that South Carolina prove the homes would have constituted a public nuisance before enforcing the regulation protecting the sea coast.

In Vermont, a failed takings law was nicknamed the "pout and pay" bill. Opponents argued that the bill would have encouraged owners of low-value properties to imagine fantastic development schemes that conflicted with zoning restrictions or wetlands protection, then present the federal government with the bill.

After a bitter legislative battle, Arizona Governor Fife Symington signed a takings bill into law in June 1992. Delaware also passed a takings bill in 1992. In 1993, Utah passed a takings bill. In Idaho and Wyoming, takings bills passed the state legislatures, but were vetoed by the governors of each state on the grounds that the laws would create unnecessary bureaucracy. Similar bills are pending in a number of states across the country.

It is at the grassroots, city, town, and county level in rural areas that the Wise Use movement has been most effective. State-level takings laws fare better than efforts to convince the federal government it has no right to regulate land use. American industry has never dared advocate total war on the environment, even if the argument can be made that at times standard industry practices have fit that description. But grassroots Wise Users are proving effective shock troops, using tactics inspired by Ron Arnold to reverse decades of environmental compromise and negotiation in a few months.

The private property rights call was first sounded in the Northeast by the John Birch Society. In 1990-91, John Birch Society members helped turn out hundreds of people to protest the Northern Forest Lands study, a joint effort by the federal government and the governments of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine to plan for the future of the vast woodland known as the Big North.

Now, New England's private property rights movement has outgrown its John Birch Society origins. Wise Use groups in every New England state have affiliated with the Alliance for America. In Vermont, Citizens for Property Rights has assembled a coalition of developers and far right politicians to crusade for the repeal of the state's progressive land-use laws. The Maine Conservation Rights Institute, based in the state's far northeast (a stronghold of Christian fundamentalism), promotes a typical Wise Use agenda, opposing wetlands and forest protection under the guise of conservation.

A western Massachusetts Wise Use group called Friends of the Rivers (FOR) blocked a US Park Service plan to designate the upper reaches of the Farmington River a federally protected "wild and scenic" river. With assistance from Alliance for America, FOR spread disinformation on the effects of wild and scenic designation. Its literature predicted businesses being forced to close, property values plummeting, and riverbank homes being taken by the government.

Friends of the Rivers' most vocal ally was Don Rupp, who is affiliated with Alliance for America. Rupp previously had led an unsuccessful struggle against wild and scenic designation of the Upper Delaware river in New York. Along the Delaware, Rupp warned of dire effects from wild and scenic designation that were virtually identical to the claims that appeared in Friends of the Rivers' literature. But no homes have been taken or landowners forced to move from Rupp's home territory. And after the Park Service stepped in to provide protection to the river property, land values along the Upper Delaware rose.

Friends of the Rivers' leaders included the Campetti family, owners of an oil distributor and off-road vehicle dealership, and Francis Deming, who operates his 100-acre property as a pay-as-you-go dumpsite. But despite this evident self-serving interest, FOR's claims frightened enough Massachusetts residents to cause three towns to vote against the wild and scenic designation of the Upper Farmington. FOR displayed posters claiming local wild and scenic supporter Bob Tarasuk was a paid government agent. Tarasuk had once spent a summer working for the Bureau of Land Management; he reports that harassing phone calls from opponents of wild and scenic designation eventually forced him to get an unlisted telephone number.

"There is no better tactic than to threaten someone's land. Get someone who lives on their land and that's all they have and then tell them that the government is coming to take it. Fear works. The Alliance for America knows this and I believe they coach [local groups]," Tarasuk said. "Your land has been stolen," read an FOR flier distributed along the Farmington.

In Connecticut, along the lower reaches of the Farmington River, a local river protection group called the Farmington River Watershed Association defeated FOR's efforts to prevent wild and scenic designation. Drawing on its strong local base, the Watershed Association (founded in 1953) rallied local citizens to support wild and scenic designation. Don Rupp's efforts to spread fearful tales about the Park Service were blunted by the fact that the city of Hartford has flooded several branches of the lower Farmington to create reservoirs. Connecticut residents saw wild and scenic designation as Federal protection from future dam projects.

The battle over New England's rivers reached a climax in March 1993, when the New Hampshire Landholders Alliance, an affiliate of the Alliance for America, convinced six of seven New Hampshire towns along the Pemigewasset River to vote against the river's proposed wild and scenic designation. Patricia Schlesinger of the Pemi River Council said that only 15 percent of the registered voters in the seven towns took part in the town meetings that decided the river's fate. "People felt intimidated and abused by fear-mongering and deceit. It was canned stuff, claims that the 'feds are going to take your land.' It was typical Wise Use tactics."

The founders of the New Hampshire Landholders Alliance, Cheryl and Don Johnson, have a profit motive to fight wild and scenic designation along the Pemi. Don Johnson works for Ed Clark, a local businessman who has unsuccessfully sought to build a small hydroelectric dam at a scenic area called Livermore Falls--a project that would be prohibited if wild and scenic status were secured. As a result of the defeat of the wild and scenic plan, the state of New Hampshire will lose $450,000 in federal aid to develop a park at Livermore Falls.

Free Market Environmentalism

Environmentalists are conditioned by decades of using legislative processes to battle industry over the scale of development and resource exploitation in natural areas. But Wise Users don't contest the scope of environmental protection; they wage war on the notion that any ecological problems exist that cannot be solved by reliance on the free market. David Gurnsey, Maine Conservation Rights Institute's representative to the Northern Forest Lands Advisory Committee, did not criticize the conclusions of the Committee's biodiversity study--he claimed the whole concept of preserving biodiversity was a veiled effort to take land from private owners.

Wise Users often call environmentalists "watermelons": green on the outside, but red to the core. This association of environmentalists with the specter of communism is not mere grassroots name-calling. Corporate-funded, rightist libertarian think tanks like the Cato Institute and the Reason Foundation publish analysis and research supporting the Wise Use claim that green politics are the last vestige of communism's collectivist, One World Government plot to subjugate the planet. In its most extreme forms, this logic surfaces in the claim of Lyndon LaRouche's followers that Greenpeace's activists are eco-terrorists and pawns of the KGB. The Greenpeace-KGB connection, first trumpeted in LaRouche publications, resurfaced in the writings of Kathleen Marquardt, founder of Putting People First and winner of the Best Newcomer Award at the June 1992 Wise Use Leadership Conference .

In some respects, however, free market environmentalism as advocated by Cato's director of Natural Resource Studies, Jerry Taylor, or Reason Magazine editor, Virginia I. Postrel, has more merit than many environmentalists want to admit. For example, the biggest source of water pollution in America today is municipal wastewater facilities built with federal assistance. It was only after the end of federal subsidies for wastewater treatment that alternative clean-up methods like engineered wetlands were able to win out over traditional wastewater plants in many areas. But the Wise Use movement is not seeking to open opportunities for small businesses to profit while healing the planet. They want to dismantle government environmental protection while removing restrictions on industrial exploitation.

At the grassroots level, the Wise Users are taking on many of the typical characteristics of demagogic, paranoid right-wing movements, portraying environmentalists as in league with the federal government to destroy families. In Vermont, Citizens for Property Rights decorated a rally with effigies of their opponents dangling from nooses. Massachusetts' Friends of the Rivers claimed that environmental groups had paid off legislators to support wild and scenic designation of the Farmington River. In New Hampshire, opponents of grassroots Wise Users along the Pemigewassett River received threatening phone calls.

Wise Use and the Right Wing

By 1993, the Wise Use movement had begun forming its first links with anti-gay activists and the Religious Right. In his report, God, Land and Politics, Dave Mazza of the Western States Center traced the growing association of two grassroots movements in Oregon. "Oregon's electoral process has seen the Wise Use Movement and the Religious Right movement coming together in a number of ways, intentionally or unintentionally pushing forward a much broader conservative social or economic agenda," Mazza concluded.

The Oregon Citizens' Alliance, which achieved a small measure of national fame by its advocacy of a state referendum effectively legalizing discrimination against gays and lesbians (Measure 9), is trying to climb on the state's crowded Wise Use bandwagon by sponsoring an initiative undermining Oregon's land-use planning laws. As the Wise Use movement continues to spread, it is becoming both more vociferous and sophisticated. The leaders of the Wise Use movement have demonstrated that they would rather intimidate environmentalists than negotiate compromises between economic and environmental interests. In practice, Wise Use is proving to be a slick new name for some of democracy's oldest enemies.

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St. Louis County Wise Use

2007-07-09T07:33:00.000-07:00

Wise Use In Minnesota

Understanding The Wise Use Movement

With the growth of the Wise Use movement in Minnesota, there is a need for a means of understanding what this movement is about. This page is an effort to provide information and links to stories and sites relating to Wise Use. The information provided by the sites, and the opinions and events related by the authors, are their own, and are provided here solely as information for you to judge.

Groups calling themselves members of the Wise Use movement represent landowners, loggers, off-road vehicle users, miners and other individuals who are often at odds with legislation enacted to protect and preserve public lands. The term "Wise Use" was co-opted from Gifford Pinchot, first chief of the Forest Service, who advocated the wise use of natural resources. Unfortunately, anti-environmental groups are committed to opening up public lands not only to harmful resource extraction, but to outright exploitation. They also seek to frighten people with paranoid stories about government take-overs, and similar delusional tales of United Nations usurpation of U.S. sovereignty.

Though their ideas are often wacky, these groups have become a thorn in the side of progressive conservation efforts. They've gained footholds in the political machine of Minnesota, particularly in the NE, NW, and SE, and they continue to organize. In general, the movement believes that the government should not own land, that private property rights need not recognize responsibilities to the common good or environment, that the authority of counties is equal to that of the state and federal governments, and that environmental laws, and those people that support them (and agencies that implement them), are the cause of all rural job insecurity. To that end, they prey upon the fears of non-unionized rural workers dependent upon natural resources, villainizing those in support of conservation and natural resource agency employees. They oppose all land use restrictions - thus wilderness designation is one of their favorite targets. But they also oppose even lesser levels of resource protection - travel restrictions on ATVs, OHVs, and personal watercraft, etc. Even the existence and creation of state owned and managed wildlife management areas are now under attack by the movement, and they oppose federal acquisition of waterfowl production areas, national wildlife refuges, and parks. Where these places already do exist, the Wise Use movement maintains that they should be open to oil and gas drilling, logging, grazing and other uses contrary to the purpose of the land use designation. Wildlife, fish and plant species that are threatened or endangered are "non-adaptive species" in the language of Wise Use, and are not needed (nor are the laws that protect these species from extinction).

According to award winning environmental writer Ted Williams,

"The principle organizers/promoters of Wise Use are Alan M. Gottlieb and Ron Arnold. Gottlieb, who runs the not-for-profit Center for Defense of Free Enterprise, has done time in the slammer for filing false income tax returns and failing to pay taxes. Arnold has ties to Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church."
"The movement's official platform--known as the 'Wise Use Agenda'--advocates opening all wilderness and national parks to logging, oil drilling and mining, and lifting Endangered Species Act protection from 'non-adaptive species,' i.e., everything that can't stand hack-and-gouge development. The one planetary crisis the agenda doesn't kiss off is global warming, for which it prescribes razing all old growth, this on the timber-industry-generated superstition that planted monocultures suck more carbon from the atmosphere."
"Right now the environmental movement is a perfect bogeyman for us," Gottlieb told Williams. "In order to get people to join and donate money we need opposition."
"Facts don't matter," declared Arnold, "in politics perception is reality."

Arnold, in a 1998 interview that appeared in the Conservative Monitor, had this to say about environmentalism:

"Environmentalism has gone so far around the political spectrum it has become that farthest-to-the-right of all ideologies, fascism. But it's a fascism without Hitler or Mussolini. It's a fascism with equally self-righteous zealots absolutely convinced they are right and willing to disregard you if you disagree. Radical environmentalism is not progressive, it's retrogressive, aiming to blast us not to some utopian future, but back to primeval nature..."

The Wise Use movement, while giving lip-service to the idea that we must be good stewards of the earth and that natural resources are finite, actually supports Arnold's notion that technology will be our savior, and that the whole world can be brought up to Western living standards. When this happens, they predict that the developing nations of the world will stridently reject environmentalism.

"The great marvel of technological civilization is its ability to learn and its power to solve problems imaginatively, said Arnold in the same interview. "I foresee Western standards of living extending worldwide in stages as Third World cultures throw off the yoke of environmentalists who have imposed no-growth policies on them. Watch for some determined struggles of the poor to better their lot and a revolutionary awakening of global populations to the negative influence of environmentalism on human life."

Some of the "negative influences of environmentalism on human life" that are targets of the Wise Use movement are landmark laws such as the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, both of which have had measurable positive impacts on human life (as well as fish, plant and animal life). They also oppose any other restrictions or regulations that might promote human and ecosystem health if they perceive it as restricting "private property rights."

In an interview with Cascadia Planet, Arnold elaborated his views on rights and responsibilities. Summarizing Arnold's view, this article states he belives: In a world of large-scale bureaucracies, governmental and corporate, private property rights constitute a bulwark of individual freedom. Property rights in a privatized world would be tied to "exact responsibilities". Relations would be regulated by courts.

"If you can show that by negligence or nuisance I have harmed you, then you have a civil tort. You may not harm another with your property." But those responsibilities do not extend beyond the human world, Arnold believes. In his view, the owner of a piece of land owns the plants and wildlife on them, and can use them as he or she chooses.

Arnold agreed that this position signifies the essential divide between the "Wise Use" and ecological movements. Most people in the latter believe that "trees have standing" - that human beings do not have a right to eliminate other species, and that people are obliged to respect the integrity of the ecosystems in which their land is located.

It also flies in the face of the law. One of the great differ differences between the United States and the European homelands of so many of its founders is that the new settlers of this land believed that wildlife should belong to the people, not the landowner. Tired of being harrassed by wealthy landowners in their native countries, America's founders sought a more democratic and equitable distribution of the land's wealth. In other words, in America, wildlife belongs to the people, not the landowner, and while landowners certainly have some inviolate rights, they also have responsibilities to the common good, a fact little recognized by the Wise Use movement. Any effort by any level of government to get property owners to respect their responsibilities is rebuffed as a "takings" of private property.

According to "The Legal Basis for Fish and Wildlife Management in the U.S." by Erik Fritzell of the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State University,

"Martin vs. Waddell (1842) established public trust authority. The important legal relationship between private and public interests in wildlife was formally established in 1842. Martin was seeking to claim exclusive ownership of oysters from beds adjacent to his land along Raritan River in New Jersey. He traced his title to a land grant from King Charles II to the Duke of York during the 17th century. In those documents, the granted property included land, water, and the fish and wildlife residing there. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney, however, declared that 'dominion and property' in the lands and waters were not the Kings to give away in the first place. Taney declared that the Magna Charta had settled the ownership question, and that since the American Revolution, the people of New Jersey held the public trust responsibilities for fish and wildlife -- except for those rights specified in the U.S. Constitution."

The 10th Amendment to the Constitution also appears to grant authority and ownership of fish and wildlife to the states, a position upheld by the Supreme Court in Geer vs. Connecticut (1896). The Supreme Court ruled against Geer (who wanted to sell wildlife that was illegal in his home state, but legal in another) and declared that the states property right in game was to be exercised as a trust for the benefit of the people of the state. Geer vs. Connecticut is considered the bulwark of states authority over wildlife.

Because of public ownership of wildlife and fish, and of large public holdings of land, the average American can afford to hunt, fish, or view wildlife. This would not be the case if the Wise Use movement had its way.

The Wise Use philosophy, though it often purports to represent the interests of the common person -- including hunters and anglers -- actually would drive us toward a feudal system where only the wealthy or those who own land would be able to enjoy America's fish and wildlife resources at the level now available to average citizens.

Thus, public lands are a favorite target of Arnold and his colleagues, and in their "perfect world" they would privatize everything. Knowing that Americans would not stand idly by while this happens, they instead have mounted case by case assaults on destabilizing management of these lands, or have attempted to twist the land's use to something other than their designated purpose -- such as drilling for oil in ANWR.

Here in Minnesota, the Wise Use movement mounted the recent attacks on both Voyageurs National Park and the BWCAW that resulted in over a year of tedious "mediation." In both cases the Wise Use factions sought to force uses in these federal lands that would not normally be considered -- i.e., jet-skis in VNP, trucks and snowmobiles in the BWCAW.

And although they reach out to sportsmen and women, hunters and anglers are used by the movement, rather than respected. Examples are numerous, but here in Minnesota, the Wise Use movement has even sought to stop the acquisition of Wildlife Management Areas -- areas that are highly valued and heavily used by hunters unable to own land. These are not huge national parks being established, but parcels of just one or two hundred acres. The wise-use laden St. Louis County Board supports prohibiting the acquisition of land for parks and wildlife areas, a position already adopted in resolution form by six other northern counties. This same board forced taxpayers to foot the bill for frivolous lawsuits against both the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service by passing resolutions contributing county money.

In our region they have derailed sensible restrictions on off road vehicle use on public lands, despite the fact that the activities of this small, well organized, and very noisy group, adversely impact the rest of Minnesotans. The Wummies' nonsensical attacks on ecosystem management, laced with bizarre inferences of New World Orders and United Nation take-overs, has slowed the implementation of this needed approach to resource management. These beliefs even led to a strange lawsuit by the Associated Contract Loggers against the U.S. Forest Service and two environmental groups. This suit claimed that ecosystem management is based on "deep ecology", and that this is a pagan religion, and thus the Forest Service is guilty of violating the separation of church and state. A judge later ruled that this claim was not only worthless, but bordered on being frivolous.

Some of this is so strange, it seems laughable. It isn't, not when mainstream groups like the Associated Contract Loggers are duped, county boards buy in, or legislators fall into their camp.

You need to inform yourself. The information here is provided for that purpose. It will be updated as often as issues require, or information becomes available. Please check back.

http://webpages.charter.net/duluthikes/wise_use/wiseuse.htm

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/waters/watermgmt_section/shoreland/SL_Rules_Advisory_Committee_11-14-05_Summary.pdf

Anti Environmental in Minnesota?

2007-07-08T10:03:00.000-07:00

Environmentalist has become a dirty word in some circles of northern Minnesota. One of those circles is the St. Louis County Board of Commissioners. Dennis Fink and his cronies push their anti environmental agenda and seek to push the people out of the discussion.

They give their direction to the DNR not at open public meetings, but quietly on the side.

Fink & Nelson lead the charge.

Some history on anti environmental forces in Northern Minnesota....

UNDUE INFLUENCE

Author
Tours:
Minnesota

DULUTH NEWS-TRIBUNE

November 20, 1999

Wise-use activist says his fight is about 'saving civilized society'

By John Myers News-Tribune outdoors writer

Ron Arnold has been labeled by his supporters and detractors alike as the grandfather of the wise-use movement, and it's a title he doesn't mind.

Arnold, executive director of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, embraces his role as arch-enemy of the U.S. environmental movement.

In a lengthy telephone interview with the News-Tribune this week from his home in Bellevue, Wash., Arnold said wise use is defined as people wisely using the earth for their benefit versus preserving the earth for nature's sake.

It's a critical distinction, he claims, because public hysteria over exaggerated or artificial environmental concerns could soon 'destroy industrial civilization.''

Arnold, 62, will be in Duluth Monday as featured speaker in a fund-raising banquet for the local groups FIGHT (Fight Inefficient Government and High Taxes) for Minnesota and the Land Rights Alliance.

His appearance is considered a coup by wise-use advocates across the Northland who regard Arnold a hero in the fight against the environmental and conservation movements and against government ownership and regulation of land.

Arnold's visit has angered environmental and conservation groups who have linked the wise-use activist to radical elements of anti-government groups, including county supremacy and militia groups that condone violence against the federal government in the defense of private property rights. (County supremacy groups generally believe county-level elected officials are the highest law of the land and supersede state and national officials and regulations.)

But to local activists battling to reduce public ownership and government control of lands -- in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Voyageurs National Park, Isle Royale National Park and even state wildlife management areas -- Arnold has become a national source of strategy and support.

"This guy is incredible and he can help us in our effort,'' said Gregg Lillejord, president of Duluth-based FIGHT. "We have a resource-based economy in northern Minnesota and it's about time people heard the wise-use side of the story and not just the eco side of the story. We want to conserve what we have, but we have to use (the resources) we have or we won't survive. We can't live off being a bunch of tourist shops.''

Arnold has been a national player in the anti-environmental movement since writing a 1981 biography of James Watt, the controversial, conservative Secretary of the Interior under President Ronald Reagan.

Arnold said the wise-use movement had its true impetus in a 1988 conference in Reno, Nev., that he promoted. The meeting attracted 250 groups from across the country -- all of which were fighting government land control and environmental regulation. The event included county supremacy groups and large extractive resource corporations such as Boise Cascade and Exxon.

In just over 10 years, Arnold noted, the list of groups involved has grown to nearly 3,000.

Still, outside of activists within the wise-use and environmental camps, few people have likely heard of Arnold. But they probably have heard his issues.

Arnold's goal is simple: Destroy the "moral crusade'' of the environmental movement and pledge total support for the extractive industries -- mining, logging and cattle grazing -- that provide jobs in rural America.

The entire wise-use movement, Arnold says, is about fostering extractive industries and thus "saving civilized society.'' The ultimate goal of what he describes as well-organized and well-funded environmental organizations is to stop consumerism and the industrial revolution, turning back the clock and placing the earth above people.

It's simply utilization versus preservation, Arnold said. And preservation means people will have to do without.

"We call them environmental supremacists. They are putting the earth above people,'' Arnold said. "They understand that the things we all use come from the ground -- food, lumber, minerals. So they know that shutting these industries down means ending our society as we know it.

"We're trying to save the industrial revolution here,'' Arnold said.

Arnold brushes aside assertions that environmentalists may simply be trying to mitigate industrial impact to preserve clean air, water and land for people as well as nature. While some local environmental battles may be legitimate causes to protect people's interests, Arnold conceded, he said most are based in a philosophical effort to place nature over people.

Arnold, who was once a member of the Sierra Club in the 1960s, said the environmental movement has been fostered by an increasingly urbanized society that has lost touch with the fact their homes and newspapers are made from trees, that their cars and computers are packed with minerals and that the steaks they eat were cows that had to eat grass.

Urbanites are "fat, dumb and happy. But if we can't get at the resources they need, the entire system will collapse. Then what will happen?'' Arnold said.

Urban Americans also are ignoring the plight of rural residents -- ranchers, loggers and miners -- who he says have not benefited from the nation's longest period of economic prosperity.

But instead of blaming rapidly changing world economics and trends, undue corporate profit taking or outdated technology as others have, Arnold flatly blames environmental groups for nearly all of the problems.

It is the woeful state of much of rural America that Arnold says fuels his passion to stop big government and environmental efforts. Arnold dismisses as lies and misrepresentations the many economic statistics that show the economies in his home Pacific Northwest as booming despite increasing federal logging regulations.

The boom in large, urban areas is really masking the rural depression, he said. Even booming rural areas, including several in the Northland, likely are based on service industries and not resource extraction, he said, and likely won't hold up.

"Until you see the damage they (environmentalists) cause in the face of people who have been harmed by environmental regulation, you can't understand,'' Arnold said. "We have a two-class economy now, urban and rural.''

Environmental groups are pushing their ecology as an ideology without first finding suitable and affordable substitutes, Arnold claims. For example, some environmental groups are pushing to end logging on national forests without first finding a suitable alternative source of wood fiber or building materials; and without finding new, good-paying jobs for loggers and mill workers.

"They (environmentalists) have already won that battle. They have shut down, or are in the process of shutting down, logging on federal lands. And what is that doing in your communities in northern Minnesota?'' Arnold said, dismissing the more than 1 billion board feet of lumber still cut on national forests each year as just a "fraction of what it should be.''

That's why Arnold's various organizations (he also owns Northwoods Studio, a for-profit company that does consulting for business and industry groups) strongly push laws and regulations that favor private property ownership and rights. Only on one's own property, he said, can Americans truly enjoy the freedoms intended by the founding fathers.

DULUTH NEWS-TRIBUNE

Saturday, November 27, 1999

Environmentalists' influence cripples rural economies

Ron Arnold

The following is excerpted from a speech given in Duluth this week by Ron Arnold, executive director of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise and a founder of the wise-use movement:

I want to talk to you about the most important book I've ever written.

``Undue Influence'' is the seventh book I've written, and number six, titled ``Ecoterror: The Violent Agenda to Save Nature,'' was just voted by a Random House/Modern Library reader survey as one of the hundred most important nonfiction books of the 20th century. I hope that one day people can vote for ``Undue Influence'' as one of the hundred most important nonfiction books of the 21st century.

It's a book of warning. It's a book of hope. It's a book that takes the lid off a hidden world that affects your daily life and that of everyone else in America.

This book grew out of a report to Congress: a report titled ``Battered Communities: How wealthy private foundations, grant-driven environmental groups, and activist federal employees combine to systematically cripple rural economies.''

Although this report covered the entire United States, many of you here in Minnesota helped a great deal in putting it together. Some of your county commissioners, a state senator and a mayor provided statements for this report.

I soon discovered that every environmental group I investigated was connected to some coalition or some alliance or some campaign with a lot of other environmental groups. Now that's not natural. Previous experience had shown me these groups had been cutthroat competitors during the 1970s and 80s, sending out direct mail fund-raising newsletters to the same pool of potential members. They were always fighting each other for money, for turf, for bragging rights and for time in front of the TV cameras.

Why were they suddenly so buddy-buddy? Why were they working so closely together now? I had to solve that mystery.

I got out some old tape recordings made at the annual meeting of the Environmental Grantmakers Association back in 1992. The Environmental Grantmakers Association, or E.G.A., as they call themselves, is a group of about 200 foundations, including the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Rockefeller Family Fund, the W. Alton Jones foundation, the Bullitt Foundation and many, many others.

Chuck Clusen of a foundation called the American Conservation Association said: ``I think the environmentalist community as a whole is not very strategic. And I think we need to start rebuilding that.''

Then, Anne Fitzgerald of the Switzer Foundation asked him, ``Do you detect, though, a resistance in the larger organizations to becoming grant-driven?''

Here, Donald Ross of the Rockefeller Family Fund broke in and said, ``Yeah. I think a lot of them resist.''

Clusen added, ``There's definitely a feeling on the part of the environmental organizations that they resent funders, not just picking the issues, but also being directive in the sense of the kind of campaign, the strategy, the style, and so on. I look at it as, if they're not going to do it on their own, thank God funders are forcing them to start doing it.''

Donald Ross then said: ``I think funders have a major role to play. And I know there are resentments in the environmental community towards funders doing that. And, too bad. We're players, they're players.''

Now here's the clincher: Donald Ross then said, ``I think the fundamental effort that has to be made is a reorganization of the movement. I don't think it's realistic to think that groups like Sierra Club or NRDC are going to disappear and reform into something new. They'll stay, and they'll still send out those newsletters. I think we have to begin to look much more at a task force approach on major issues that is able to pool resources. And the funders can drive that.''

And they sure have. That's what we've seen more and more in the past seven or eight years.

In legal terms it's not really money laundering, it's more like a rinse job. The public can't see where all this tax exempt, taxpayer subsidized money is coming from or going to in this washing machine. For one thing, environmentalist public relations firms make sure the question gets lost in the spin cycle.

Environmentalist money isn't all that goes around in circles.

Environmental executives go through a revolving door from their organizations into the Clinton/Gore administration. I've tracked more than 50 former environmental group executives in high level federal jobs from Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who came from the League of Conservation Voters, to Jean Nelson, who came from the Natural Resources Defense Council to become the top lawyer of the Environmental Protection Agency. And Al Gore's former Senate staffer Carol Browner now runs the EPA.

Environmentalists are everywhere in the Clinton/Gore White House. They're like a termite infestation. You can't see them all, but they're in there eating out your substance. The Clinton-Gore administration is as full of leaks as a sieve. And those leaks can spell real danger for rural communities.

Let me close with the story of one such leak. It happened in Oregon, on the Willamette National Forest, near Eugene. A salvage logging sale was offered in a place called Warner Creek.

Environmental groups were intent upon stopping any salvage logging because they wanted to shut down all logging on federal lands, period.

As soon as the Warner Creek logging contract was signed in September 1995, a group of EarthFirst! protesters and others blocked the only road into the work site. They built an illegal encampment and did $20,000 damage to the road with 6-foot-deep trenches and sharpened metal spikes. At least two of the protesters were from groups that received foundation funding.

Forest Service law enforcement officials quickly prepared an action plan to remove the protesters and allow logging to begin. They were very concerned, because they knew that at least one of the 30 or more protesters had a gun, said to be a machine pistol. Law enforcement was even more worried because protesters equipped with cell phones looked like they knew in advance of their removal plan. The lead officer concluded that some insider had leaked law enforcement information to the protesters.

What the public saw was that the protesters remained for 11 months in that illegal encampment, destroying a Forest Service road and blocking all traffic while Clinton-Gore law enforcement officers did nothing. Not until August 1996 did officers clean out the site, finding only five protesters at the encampment -- the others had run away.

When the House oversight committee in charge of Forest Service activities investigated, they found a Forest Service e-mail that said Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta had given the stand-down order to law enforcement. They also found e-mails that indicated a high ranking officer of the President's Council on Environmental Quality was suspected of leaking law enforcement information to the protesters and had also been receiving telephone calls from protesters.

I hope I have given you a brief insight into what undue influence can mean.

I'm sure you can visualize a Warner Creek Situation here in Minnesota. I'm sure you have grave concerns about the massive fire hazard of downed trees in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area that threatens to depopulate a whole region of your state. If the towns that were built many years ago burn, will current environmental laws allow them to be rebuilt?

This book makes it clear that there is an iron triangle of wealthy foundations, grant-driven environmental groups and zealous bureaucrats controlling your future without your knowledge or consent.

Learn what they are doing. Become knowledgable about who they are. Get the message to every lawmaker, every regulator, every leader. You can stop undue influence from being used against you. Congress needs to investigate. But you must know what you are up against first.

Read this book. Always remember, knowledge is power.

Arnold resides in Bellevue, Wash.

DULUTH NEWS-TRIBUNE

Editorial from the November 24, 1999

Northeastern Minnesotans should make it known they aren't buying Wise Use founders' anti-environment line

Columnist George Will wrote a column that included Ron Arnold and Alan Gottlieb of the Wise Use Movement among "quasi-political entrepreneurs who have discovered commercial opportunities in merchandising discontent... "

Arnold, described as the "Founding Father of the Wise Use Movement," spoke in Duluth this week promoting his latest book.

Northeastern Minnesotans should make it known they aren't buying his line that environmentalists "combine to systematically cripple rural economies by eliminating resource industries."

It's easy to foment discontent in a climate of rapid change. It's easy to exploit people's feelings of economic insecurity at a time when our natural resource-based industries respond to international market forces and technological advances continue to reduce the number of jobs.

Arnold would have us believe that our economic uncertainties are due to current laws protecting the environment or environmentalists who really aim at authoritarian power -- a bunch of hooey. As Retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf once said at a Nature Conservancy press conference, "These `Wise Use' extremists claim that economically you're going to take their jobs away from them; they're all going to become poor; their children are going to starve; and it's all because you're a bunch of fuzzy-headed tree-huggers... It's blatant lying in many cases is how they present things."

Ironically, Arnold has taken the name for his movement from Gifford Pinchot, named by President Teddy Roosevelt as the first head of the U. S. Forest Service. Roosevelt created the nation's system of public parks and national forests as a protection against what he called "land grabbers and special interests." Pinchot led the way, saying in 1907 that "Conservation is the wise use of resources." Both men would roll over in their graves to learn the current use of their "wise use" message.

Arnold admits, however, "The modern wise use movement does not hold Pinchot in reverence: he was just another bureaucrat who believed `conservation' had to come by `government control of resources.'"

Arnold is very effective and should not be underestimated. Author David Helvarg describes him in this way: "He has taken a personal bitterness against the environmental movement, the organizing theories of Lenin, the collective-behavior analysis of a couple of professors in the social movements field, and a broad reading of Abraham Maslow and other social psychologists, and synthesized them into a new force on the political Right that sees environmental change as an imminent threat to free enterprise, private property and industrial civilization.''

His program includes unrestricted timber cutting on public lands; mining and drilling in national parks and wilderness areas; rollback of clean air, water quality and other landmark environmental legislation.

For those of us who live in communities where economic vitality still depends on natural resources, we need to have discussions about future development and growth. But our discussions ought not be of the politically polarizing, conspiratorial sort that the "Wise Use Movement'' promotes.

"Wise Users'' are as out of touch with the American mainstream as those at the other extreme who advocate tree spiking.

DULUTH NEWS-TRIBUNE

December 28, 1999

Wise-use movement exists to benefit land into the future

Ron Arnold

Your Nov. 24 editorial criticizing the wise-use movement, ``Northeastern Minnesotans should make it known they aren't buying wise-use founders' anti-environment line,'' and recent letters to the editor call for a vigorous reply.

In the first place, the 2,000 or more groups that make up the wise-use movement are the true stewards of our land. They are the farmers and ranchers and miners and loggers who depend for their livelihood on the land and have lived on it for generations.

Wise-users are good people. They certainly do not wish to do the terrible things detractors accuse them of.

As for accusations by News-Tribune readers that my researches are "paranoid conspiracy theories,'' decide for yourself.

My message to the people of Minnesota is common-sense advice: Be as skeptical of organized environmentalism as you are of the wise-use movement. That's only fair.

Environmentalists have a lot to be skeptical of.

Particularly the powerful combination of wealthy charitable foundations, grant-driven green groups and zealous bureaucrats that obstruct resource workers all over rural America.

Joshua Reichert, head of Pew Charitable Trusts' environment program, once wrote, "For considerable sums of money, public opinion can be molded, constituents mobilized, issues researched, and public officials button-holed, all in a symphonic arrangement.'' See Mark Dowie's misattribution.

Pew has those "considerable sums of money'': 1998 assets of $4.7 billion. Reichert wrote that message to recruit millions more from colleagues in the 200-member Environmental Grantmakers Association.

Most Americans resent people rearranging their minds, but they don't know environmentalists are doing it to them.

Take the recent Clinton administration designation of 40 million acres of federal land as permanent "roadless area'' that bans logging, mining, ranching and farming there. It didn't just happen.

That declaration was the result of millions of foundation dollars funneled through environmental groups to pressure top-level bureaucrats into writing the order.

But the public didn't know.

Here's what really happened: The Pew Charitable Trusts created a "Heritage Forests Campaign'' to stop all resource extraction on 60 million acres of federal land.

To put the program in action, Pew gave over $3 million to the National Audubon Society, which, by agreement with Pew, spread the money to a dozen other environmental groups under their supervision.

Pew selected Audubon as their money funnel because of the forceful reputation of Dan Beard, former Clinton administration commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and now Audubon's Washington, D.C., policy director.

Audubon and their dozen money spigots used Pew dollars to mold public opinion, mobilize constituents, research issues and button-hole public officials in symphonic arrangement.

Audubon got a letter of support for the roadless area campaign signed by 170 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and gained support from some 40 Senators. How did they do that without using Pew donations for lobbying?

With Clinton-insider Dan Beard on their staff, Audubon got a promise of action from the White House.

But that wasn't enough. Audubon hired the president's pollster to show that urban dwellers care more about wilderness than about rural jobs. The pollster gave the results to the White House chief of staff.

The president subsequently issued the directive giving Pew, Audubon and their allies 40 of the 60 million acres they wanted.

How did I arrive at this "conspiracy theory?''

I read it in the minutes of Audubon's board meeting, Sept. 17-18, 1999, on Audubon's own Web site! Go to http://www.audubon.org/chapter/ca/santamonicabay/brew.htm#Heritage Forest Campaign.

The Clinton administration and the Pew gang say the roadless designation won't hurt logging much.

Retired Forest Service employees in northern Minnesota, now immune to retribution, told me that is a flat lie. It will hurt many people a lot.

The Clinton Forest Service has already tried dirty tricks to prevent logging on state and private lands in Minnesota: they vowed to keep loggers from crossing federal land to reach their own logging sites.

That's illegal. Attorney General Mike Hatch had to threaten a lawsuit against the Forest Service to make them back down and let loggers on their own property.

Am I unreasonable to ask that such environmentalist abuses be investigated? Certainly Congress needs to do some vigilant oversight.

Even though the Duluth News-Tribune accepted a ``partnership'' with the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, I am sure that will not be used to shield Pew and its allies from probing and objective inquiry.

Your readers deserve a look into that hidden world.

They also deserve better than empty insults hurled at wise-users, who supply you with ink, newsprint and all your other material needs.

Arnold is executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, based in Washington State.

technorati link

2007-06-25T23:17:00.001-07:00

Technorati Profile

2007-06-17T17:04:00.000-07:00

It's kind of strange. The Dnr's Craig Engwall assures us the process is a real one, that decisions regarding the forest have not been set in stone. He assures us that when we meet in Cotton and in Rice Lake there will be a real openness to the ideas of the people.

Then we hear the ATV clubs from Minneapolis are coming. And we're told that everyone's mind on the County Commissioners Board is made up. There's no wiggle room.

This ought to make Dennis Fink just frolicsome with joy. He becomes positively effervescent when he talks about bringing thousands of OHV tourists to the forest.

And Patty Rutka says it's not an environmental issue. On Mars. No one finds it important to point out ole Patty's husband is the ATVAM lobbyist for our area. A paid professional promoter of ATVs right there in the living room.

2007-06-17T11:44:00.000-07:00

The News Tribune in Duluth has a good article about the ATV situation today. It seems so complicated when you read about it. The core issue is that there is an industry, and a big one, that wants ATVs, 4 wheel drive trucks and motorcycles to use the forests to drive around in so that they will sell more ATVs, 4x4 trucks and off road motorcycles. They want a managed designation so that they can get as many trails on the ground as fast as possible.

It's what's called an "astroturf" movement, as opposed to a grassroots one. There's lots of money filtering down to the groups that will advocate for the destructive toys to be used for fun in the forest. It's a big business.

The issue is one that is being debated all over the nation. It's driven down to local areas where people are strapped for time and they are unable to delve into all the details. It takes forever to learn the terms of this industry, then there's a new one.

Ely Timberjay

2007-05-31T11:59:00.000-07:00

http://timberjay.com/current.php?article=3351

Great article, Great paper!

07 Legislature changes ATV law for better, then worse.

2007-05-31T11:11:00.000-07:00

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Volume 18, Issue 21

Late amendment opens more public land to ATVs
By Marshall Helmberger

Supporters of limits on off-highway vehicle travel on state forests were dealt an unexpected blow in the waning days of this year’s legislative session, as a provision that would have limited ATVs and other off-highway vehicles (OHVs) to mapped trails in northern Minnesota was weakened in a last minute political maneuver. But the senator who helped craft a political compromise on the issue this session said progress was still made in the effort to rein in OHV use on state lands.

Sen. Satveer Chaudhary, DFL-New Brighton, the new chair of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee, said he came into the 2007 session intent on fixing the loopholes in the state’s OHV laws that currently allow riders to travel virtually anywhere on state forest lands in northern Minnesota. Chaudhary wanted to limit OHV use to trails that are included on official OHV maps, which are being produced by the Department of Natural Resources.

And that was the result of legislation that he crafted earlier in the session, legislation that passed both the House and Senate and was signed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty earlier this month. But that just-signed law was altered days later in a conference committee maneuver by some members of the House who wanted to give OHV riders more latitude in northern Minnesota. The maneuver amended the new law to give OHV riders in state forests in northern Minnesota (defined as north of U.S. Hwy. 2) the right to use undesignated trails in addition to the mapped routes being developed by the DNR.

David Dill, DFL-Crane Lake, who spearheaded the last minute amendment, said the new bill put too many trails, especially old logging roads, off limits to OHVs.

The state’s biggest ATV group, the All-Terrain Vehicle Association of Minnesota (ATVAM), appeared less worried about that than Dill however. Ray Bohn, a lobbyist for ATVAM said the group was pretty pleased overall with Chaudhary’s legislation, which he said had adopted a number of his group’s suggestions for funding initiatives, including a provision to provide up to $250,000 a year to help ATV clubs coordinate volunteer educators. Bohn also credited Chaudhary with promoting a more civil debate on the issue. “We were pretty pleased we could carry on a dialogue with some of those people on the other side of the issue. That’s something new,” said Bohn.

And supporters of more OHV limits felt the measure offered them some items from their wish list as well. Matt Norton, a lobbyist with the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, said his group was willing to swallow some provisions it didn’t favor, particularly state funding of OHV clubs, to get the one concession they really wanted— limiting OHVs to designated routes on state forests.

ATVAM’s Bohn said the two sides were never that far apart on that particular issue. “We want designated trails, too,” said Bohn. “And we want people on those trails.” Bohn said most OHV groups envision a trail system similar to that developed for snowmobilers, which allows riders to visit an area and spend a weekend riding the trails.

But Dill said he worried that local riders would lose out on their right to use some logging roads and other trails that won’t appear on DNR maps. “We took a look at Beltrami State Forest,” said Dill, citing an example. “There are about 400 miles of mapped trails that would appear on the map and 400 miles of access routes (such as old logging roads) that the DNR doesn’t want to put on the map. I absolutely insisted that we keep access to those routes,” he said.

The legislation also allows ATV riders to continue to go off trail on state forest lands to retrieve big game. Dill’s proposal would take effect June 1, 2009, when the DNR expects to have maps showing ATV routes ready.

Dill said it eliminates the need for signs posting ATV routes. “You will be responsible as a rider” to know where routes are on the DNR maps, he said, adding that the legislation closes a loophole that would allow ATV riders to create trails independently and establish new routes.

But not everyone views Dill’s provision that way. Norton complains the new law is so ambiguous as to be almost impossible to enforce. “The new rule says stay on mapped trails, but the second provision says that that doesn’t apply on unmapped trails. When is anybody in the wrong?” he asked.

“Dill is making the law so complex as to be meaningless,” said Kristin Larsen, a resident of the Cloquet Valley state forest in southeast St. Louis County.

Norton said his group views the amended law as a step backwards, and said it’s the same kind of last minute arm-twisting approach that undid an earlier compromise crafted in 2003. That compromise exempted new OHV trails from the environmental review process, in exchange for a law that required OHVs to stay on those trails. But that requirement was eliminated two years later in the waning hours of the 2005 session, after considerable pressure from then-Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson. It was two steps backwards for supporters of OHV limits, having given up their demand for environmental review of new trails, without getting anything in return.

Norton said the latest maneuverings have a similar feel. “It’s like deja vu,” he said.

Sen. Chaudhary said he understands that some are disappointed, but he says the new legislation is a step forward for controlling OHVs in the state. “The principle of the rule still applies,” he said. While unmapped trails will still be open in northern Minnesota forests, Chaudhary said the DNR will be discouraging their use. He acknowledges the new law is unclear, but said that lack of clarity will encourage OHV users to stick to mapped trails. “When in doubt stay on the map. That’s the culture we’re trying to establish,” he said.

DNR Forest Certification, separate from County Certification

2007-05-31T10:58:00.000-07:00

Groups challenge forest certification

by Stephanie Hemphill, Minnesota Public Radio

March 8, 2006

Late last year, two international organizations certified the Minnesota DNR for managing state forests responsibly.

The designations indicate the state is using best practices to keep the forests healthy and productive.

Now two environmental groups are challenging the certification. They say the DNR isn't doing enough to prevent damage to the forests from off-highway vehicles.

Blockage removed

Duluth, Minn. — The criteria for certification cover a wide range of issues. Everything from minimizing the use of chemical pesticides, to keeping the forest diverse, to following standards for planting and harvesting trees.

Tom Baumann supervises the certification process at the DNR. He says the study that led to the certification helped the agency identify its strong points, and areas it needs to work on. He says certification also helps Minnesota forest products firms stay competitive.

"Companies that buy stumpage are looking to bring wood into their mills that have been certified," he says. "They can pass along to their customers the idea that the wood that's being used to create paper that they're using for their magazines and newspapers come from forests that are sustainably managed."

Time Warner prints its magazines on 60 percent certified paper, and it's moving to 70 percent by the end of this year.

Trail erosion

The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and the Izaak Walton League are challenging the certification of the DNR. They say the agency is responding too slowly to the sudden popularity of off-highway vehicles, and the damage they do to the forests.

The MCEA's Matt Norton says recent decisions at the DNR have been making the OHV problem worse, not better. He points to the decision to maintain some state forests as "managed" -- meaning off-road vehicle riders can assume any trail is open for riding unless it's posted as closed.

"They're not making these decisions on the basis of sound science," he says. "They're doing it based on where the political forces are pushing them."

And Norton says state laws get in the way of controlling ATV damage. Like Minnesota's policy allowing hunters and trappers to ride across country, off established trails.

"When people drive cross-country, it creates tracks on the land," he says. "The next person who comes along can ride on those trails, those are legal until the DNR can get out there, find the fact that there are new trails, look at them along their entire length and make a determination if they're appropriate for motorized recreation, and if they're not, put signs up."

Two organizations certified Minnesota's state forests. One of them, the Forest Stewardship Council, included several caveats. They're called Corrective Action Requests, and they require the DNR to do certain things to remain accredited. The first one relates to off-highway vehicles.

Robert Hrubes is with Scientific Certification Systems, the group that conducted the audit prior to certification. He says ATVs are a challenge for all forest managers. He says the Minnesota DNR may not have the resources to deal with the problem:

"To stay on top of this challenging, this vexing management task and to make sure policies that are developed are properly followed over time," he says.

One of the Corrective Action Requests calls on the DNR to analyze whether it has enough staff to complete its trail designation process. It also requires the DNR to come up with a better enforcement strategy to cut down on ATV damage to the forests.

And the audit team worried that even if the DNR develops stronger policies, Minnesota politics might override the agency. After all, Hrubes says, the legislature has flip-flopped on ATV issues several times in recent years.

"Legislatures get involved, politicians get involved, etcetera," he says. "And so our concern here is that the planning processes not be trumped by some after-the-fact political decision."

He plans to respond to the challenge of the certification within a month.

The O5 Law, or how the Range Roves the Forest

2007-05-31T10:55:00.000-07:00

ATV restrictions rolled back in state parks bill
by Tom Robertson, Minnesota Public Radio
July 1, 2005

Wetland damage in the Spider Lake recreational area. The bill passed by lawmakers to keep state parks open included a provision to roll back restrictions on ATV riding in northern Minnesota forests. (Photo courtesy of Minnesotans for Responsible Recreation)

The Minnesota Legislature passed a $686 million dollar funding bill that averts a state park shutdown over the busy holiday weekend. But a little-noticed provision was tucked into that bill, which loosens restrictions on riding all-terrain vehicles in state forests north of Highway 2. Environmentalists are angry with the move.

Bemidji, Minn. — Environmentalists see the ATV provision as a huge defeat. The bill rolls back a 2003 ATV compromise reached between Gov. Pawlenty, environmentalists and off-highway vehicle riders.

That compromise established a plan where the DNR would evaluate and reclassify each state forest and decide where ATV's can and can't go. It meant that all state forest trails would eventually be closed unless posted open.

The Legislature's new bill keeps trails in state forests north of Highway 2 open unless posted closed. Highway 2 crosses Minnesota from Duluth to East Grand Forks. Susan Solterman, policy director for Audubon Minnesota, says the bill is bad news for people who want a quiet forest experience.

You could be walking down a trail with your 5 or 6 year- old kid, birdwatching, and around the corner could come an ATV.

- Susan Solterman, Audubon Minnesota

"You could be walking down a trail with your 5 or 6 year- old kid, birdwatching, and around the corner could come an ATV," Solterman says. "It doesn't matter if that trail is a foot and a half wide or three feet wide, if the trail isn't posted closed, a motorized vehicle could be on it."

A number of northern Minnesota lawmakers pushed for the measure. They say many of the northern state forests are in sparsely populated areas where trail restrictions aren't necessary.

Sen. Carrie Ruud, R-Breezy Point, opposed the ATV provision and says she's angry about the way it was passed. Ruud says the measure was slipped in by last-minute political maneuvering, with no input from lawmakers.

Ruud says she's seen ATVs cause damage in state forests in her district. Ruud says the forests deserve more protection.

"We have 75 percent of our state forests north of Highway 2, and I think we have over four million acres of state forest. And this portion of the bill allows ATVs to free ride in those state forests," says Ruud.

Ruud says the new law chops the state in two, and creates a duel standard that will be difficult to enforce.

"How do you hold riders accountable when we have two different standards?" she asks.

Off-highway vehicle groups have long supported keeping trails open in state forests. Dave Hendricks, president of the All-Terrain Vehicle Association of Minnesota, says ATV riders will be happy with the north of highway 2 provision. He says most ATV users ride safely and responsibly.

"It's not a win-lose situation. With our counterparts and other shareholders, we still put the proverbial fig leaf out there to work with user groups and other people that use the forest," says Hendricks. "We want to keep that dialogue going, and we want to do the right thing as far as trails, education and enforcement."

Hendricks says ATV groups didn't get all they wanted from the Legislature. A provision that would have created a system of trail ambassadors was voted down. He says the bill also lacked money for ATV education programs.

The Fink Plan and it's Funny Money

2007-05-31T10:36:00.000-07:00

It is reported that St. Louis County Commissioner Dennis Fink wants to have the Cloquet Valley State Forest be a destination for Off Road Vehicles. He says he sees the Cloquet Valley State Forest as a great OHV tourist Mecca. He states he wants the managed designation so as to get as many trails on the ground as fast as possible. He wants to do this to fill the hotels of Duluth, to fill the bars and the restaurants. It's his idea of great tourism planning. No Eco Tourism for Denny!

OHVs are harmful to the forest and their unfettered use is one of the top 4 major threats to the national forests. But it's Denny's idea of a really cool thing to bring in the tourist bucks for Duluth.

He sees the Pequaywan area as a hub in a major northern OHV web that will go to the range and extend to the north shore. He stated "we didn't get the north shore trail this year but we will"

The question that rises from this is whether the rest of the county board supports this plan. Is it written down anywhere or is it just in Denny's head? Is it part of a plan that has wider support from the Hackbarth/Dill/Bakk/Saxhaug gang? Does it involve IRRB money?

So many interesting questions.

Dedicated Funding

2007-05-09T14:09:00.000-07:00

http://www.twincities.com/rentals/ci_5810690?nclick_check=1#recent_comm

Dedicated Funding / Legislators no trailblazers when it comes to our natural resources

CHRIS NISKANEN

Article Last Updated: 05/03/2007 04:27:37 PM CDT

The shameful excuses promoted by some Minnesota lawmakers to not approve a bill asking voters to dedicate a portion of the state sales tax to natural resources raise a critical question:

What's the Legislature's Plan B for natural resources?

There is none.

Sadly, we've been down this road before. In 1986, Gov. Rudy Perpich convened a group called the Governor's Citizen Commission to Promote Hunting and Fishing in Minnesota. The blue-ribbon panel, ordered to come up with ideas on how to increase wildlife habitat and hunting and fishing activities, wrote in its report:

"Outdoor recreation is a billion-dollar industry that has largely been ignored ... (and) we still seem caught up in the process whereby some of our leaders don't consider hunting and fishing as a serious and important economic activity.''

The panel proposed to the Legislature an ambitious program to spend $600 million on fish and wildlife habitat and programs for the next decade, largely through an innovative program called Reinvest in Minnesota.

RIM was considered a model funding program for natural resources and was duplicated by states across the nation. But by 1998, RIM had been funded only to the tune of $129 million, falling far short of the governor's proposal.

I mention 1998 because that same year, another blue-ribbon panel by the same name released a report re-examining Perpich's original committee and the results of RIM. The 1998 panelists concluded the Legislature failed

in its commitment to RIM, the state's conservation community was fragmented and the state wasn't fulfilling its stewardship of natural resources.

It is now 2007. It has been almost another decade, and the Legislature fiddles while Rome burns.

Last Thursday, Gov. Tim Pawlenty's blue-ribbon panel on natural resources, the Minnesota Conservation Legacy Council, released its report.

Its No. 1 finding: "While there are many examples of success, we have lost - and continue to lose - critical natural assets.''

The report says, "The facts indicate that the extent and rate of this loss is staggering and will require urgent and accelerated investments to slow the rate of loss and to assure the sustainability of our natural resources."

The Legacy Council proposed a citizen-based Conservation Commission to help oversee the DNR and provide guidance to the governor on picking - and firing - a DNR commissioner. The council also was sharply critical of the state's lack a long-term strategic plan for funding and addressing natural-resources losses.

In its report, the council stated plainly, "Current funding strategies fail to match the challenge."

The good citizens of Minnesota are plainly aware of this problem. In the past two years, a total of 8,000 people have rallied at the Capitol under the banner of Ducks, Wetlands and Clean Water to ask the Legislature to pass a dedicated funding bill.

The bill is stalled in the Senate Tax Committee, where a handful of lawmakers are sticking to this old saw - that dedicating money for natural resources through the constitution is bad policy.

It's also bad public policy to ignore the will of the people.

The chairman of the Tax Committee, Sen. Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, fancies himself an outdoorsman. Mounts of deer and fish decorate his office, fashioned in the manner of former Sen. Bob Lessard of International Falls.

Bakk and another northern lawmaker, Sen. Rod Skoe, DFL-Clearbrook, are positioning themselves as staunch opponents of dedicated funding.

Lessard was a champion of dedicating funding and, in doing so, was a champion for fixing what's wrong with our state. In this regard, Bakk and Skoe couldn't carry Lessard's Snoopy fishing rod.

I hope lawmakers like Bakk and Skoe, and others who are failing to uphold Lessard's legacy, have a Plan B for natural resources. So far, their legacy, and the legacy of others in the Legislature, is to fail our natural resources. They have a decades-long track record.

Outdoor enthusiasts (and voters) may have but one choice - to find new champions for their cause.

Chris Niskanen can be reached at cniskanen@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5524.

Global Warming Legislation

2007-05-08T12:47:00.000-07:00

http://ga6.org/campaign/global_warming/explanation

Support Strong Global Warming Solutions Legislation!

ELCA Policy Base for Support of REAL Global Warming Solutions

“Here we are in a time of unusual climatic events many of which are thought to be caused by Global Warming. Because we have not watched over the creation and have sent millions of tons of pollution into the air we are beginning to see in these de-creative acts of polluting the possibility of a new return or step toward chaos. We have oppressed the earth.” - Bishop Craig Johnson of the Minneapolis Area Synod (ELCA)

“The earth is the Lord’s. We are called to be stewards of the earth, care for it and respect it. We also are called to love our neighbors around the world who are already being impacted by climate changes and those who will follow us in future generations.”
-Bishop Jon Anderson of the Southwestern Minnesota Synod (ELCA)

Urge REAL Action on Global Warming
Later this week the Minnesota House is expected to vote on their Energy Policy Bill. Currently, this bill contains strong language for global warming solutions and energy efficiency. Your help is needed to ensure those provisions aren't cut out by bad amendments. As Minnesotans and people of faith, we have an obligation to support these efforts to protect creation.

"The earth is a planet of beauty and abundance; the earth system is wonderfully intricate and incredibly complex. But today living creatures, and the air, soil, and water that support them, face unprecedented threats. Many threats are global; most stem directly from human activity. Our current practices may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner we know." - ELCA, "Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope, and Justice" (1993); ELCA Church-wide Assembly Action CA01.07.57 (2001)

“Faithful stewardship of God’s creation on behalf of the neighbor calls for bold action that is more than good intentions and promises to study the issue. Measurable actions must follow words or they simply perpetuate inaction and hold no one to accountability. There IS a cost to future generations of NOT acting!” – Rev. Mark Peters

Tell me more

Send this message to:

Your Representative (if you live in Minnesota)

Talking Points

The global warming solutions need to take realistic and reasonable first steps to set limits on global warming pollution.

We need bold action that is more than good intentions and promises to study the issue. Measurable actions must follow words. Minnesotans demand accountability. There IS a cost to future generations of NOT acting.

Legislation must contain a goal of 80% global warming pollutions reductions by 2050. This is based on the current scientific understanding of how much we need to reduce emissions to avoid dangerous global warming.

Suggestion: Let your elected official know that you are a constituent and what church you attend (if applicable).

Your elected officials will be matched to the address you fill in at the bottom of the page. It is very important that your elected officials know that you are their constituent. Also, some officials require emails to be associated with an address.

Subject:

Dear [ Decision Maker ],

(Edit Letter Below)

Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your address]

Issues in OHV Planning

2007-05-08T09:41:00.000-07:00

Issue and Alternative Descriptions

from http://www.fs.fed.us/r9/forests/chippewa/projects/nepa/progress/ohv_07/6212Alts_Chippewa_ORV.pdf

Public Involvement

Motorized access into public land is of interest to many people. The Chippewa National Forest

(CNF) staff recognizes the opportunity to develop a collaborative planning process involving the

Forest Service; Minnesota Department of Natural Resources; Cass, Itasca and Beltrami Counties;

the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe; Townships; and others interested. The Forest’s goal is to

provide a comprehensive forest access policy that considers all stakeholders’ thoughts, issues, and

concerns.

Current Multi-Governmental ORV Planning Team

A multi-governmental ORV Planning Process Team meets regularly in northern Minnesota to

strategically guide ORV planning. The team consists of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe’s

Director of Natural Resources and a law enforcement representative; a county commissioner from

each of Itasca and Beltrami Counties; the land commissioners from Cass and Beltrami Counties; a

representative from Itasca county; two Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR)

regional commissioners, the Chippewa Forest Supervisor, and necessary Forest Service and

Minnesota DNR staff. This group provides direction, guidance, and information for the

development of community workshops and multi-agency working groups (addressing current

road condition; mapping; signing; public information; law enforcement). The group also

facilitates dissemination of information to the variety of government officials, land management

agencies; and the public (via newsletters, presentations and conversations).

General Public Involvement on ORV Planning to Date

In the winter of 2006, five community workshops were hosted by the Forest Service, Minnesota

DNR; Cass, Itasca, and Beltrami Counties; and Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, to review and gather

comments from interested people regarding ORV access. In October 2006 three community

workshops were held to review the work to date on proposals for forest access with ORVs. These

workshops were once again jointly hosted by the Minnesota DNR; Forest Service; and Cass,

Itasca, and Beltrami County governments. The workshops provided the public an opportunity to

ask questions about specific road access proposals and land management agency motorized

access policies. Comments were taken from attendees on the proposals. Public comments and

information from both workshops were used to develop the Off-Highway Vehicle Road Travel

Access Project Proposed Action.

Throughout the ORV planning process, four newsletters have been sent to date to over 300

people. These newsletters provide information on the progress and stages of ORV planning, and

contact information for those individuals seeking further information.

Presentations were made by Forest Service District Rangers to the Itasca, Cass, and Beltrami

County Commissioners at their formal meetings prior to public release of information, and

included proposed forest access recommendations, the process of determining forest access, and

responses to individuals’ questions.

Tribal Involvement

In January and February 2006 staff representing the Forest Service; Minnesota Department of

Natural Resources; Cass, Itasca and Beltrami Counties; Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe; and

Chippewa Forest Off -Highway Vehicle Road Travel Access Project

Issues and Alternatives PR Number: 621-2

Date: 4/13/2007 Revision Number: v.04022007 Approval: ALV

This is a controlled document: 2

The official version is located in the project record at the Chippewa Forest Supervisor’s Office.

Townships, convened to assess every road within the CNF boundary for ORV use. The

discussions and information was used in the development of the Off-Highway Vehicle Road

Travel Access Project Proposed Action. Forest Service personnel have also attended Local Indian

Councils (of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe) meetings. Information about the ORV route

designation process and proposal was presented and people shared their thoughts, issues, and

concerns about individual roads and Forest access policies. The feedback has been incorporated

into the Off-Highway Vehicle Road Travel Access Project alternatives. The CNF Forest

Supervisor has also talked with individuals within the LLBO leadership to keep them informed

and involved with the process.

The CNF Technology Team Leader also coordinates with the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe’s

THIPO and staff concerning spatial data related to the ORV planning process and proposal.

Issues

An issue is a point of disagreement, debate, or dispute with a proposed action based on some

anticipated effect. Forest Service personnel receive public comments and categorize them into

significant or non-significant issues. The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) NEPA

regulations require this delineation in Sec. 1501.7, “…identify and eliminate from detailed study

the issues which are not significant or which have been covered by prior environmental review

(Sec. 1506.3)…”

Significant issues are those with a clear direct, or indirect, causal relationship from implementing

the proposed action. Non-significant issues are identified as those: (1) outside the scope of the

proposed action; (2) already decided by law, regulation, Forest Plan, or other higher level

decision; (3) irrelevant to the decision to be made; or (4) conjectural and not supported by

scientific or factual evidence.

Significant Issues

The Forest Service identified the following seven significant issues from public scoping.

Issue 1: Provide more connections for loop and longer day recreation experiences

Many people expressed a desire to have more roads open to ORV use that connect to each other

for longer day riding opportunities and to create loops. Having the longer riding opportunities and

loops available can reduce the ORV hauling required and provide more recreation opportunities

and different types of riding experiences in a centralized area. People also expressed a belief that

providing loops and longer day experiences would bring economics benefit to surrounding

communities.

In response to the expressed belief that providing loops and longer day riding opportunities may

bring an economic benefit to local communities, roads near the community of Remer, the Big

Fork area on the Forest, and roads connecting communities are the focus for routes to remain

open in alternatives addressing this issue. An estimate of miles of road connected to each other

developed through geographic information system analysis (GIS) and written descriptions of

connected areas on the Forest are provided as indicators for this issue.

Issue 2: Provide increased access during hunting season

Chippewa Forest Off -Highway Vehicle Road Travel Access Project

Issues and Alternatives PR Number: 621-2

Date: 4/13/2007 Revision Number: v.04022007 Approval: ALV

This is a controlled document: 3

The official version is located in the project record at the Chippewa Forest Supervisor’s Office.

Many hunters expressed a need for increased access during hunting season. A timeframe of

September 15 to December 31 was suggested to address the many different types of fall and early

winter hunting.

The dates for additional ORV access and the specific roads open are listed as indicators that

address this issue.

Issue 3: Provide increased access for recreation experience

Many people that recreate with ORVs expressed a general concern for the loss of a recreation

opportunity currently available to them. For some, the loss they expressed came from their

identity, culture, and sense of community associated with ORV riding. Many people recreate with

their family or friends and expressed a concern that decreased access would affect those

relationships or opportunities to build or enjoy those relationships. Other people simply wanted

more access to the Forest for enjoying nature; a specific opportunity, such as guided bear hunting;

or because they did not want their personal freedom limited.

The number of miles open to ORV use across the entire Forest will be used as an indicator of how

an alternative addresses this issue.

Issue 4: Protection of resources and non-motorized recreation experiences

The CNF users that want non-motorized recreation experiences expressed concerns for protection

of non-motorized trails from ORV use and a desire for more quiet areas within the Forest. Some

people suggested establishing “buffers” of non-motorized areas near trails and other suggested an

overall feeling of “too much motorized access” on the Forest already. Other people expressed

concerns for ORV use having a negative impact on natural resources in general and for specific

species such as Canada lynx. Concerns for wetlands, sensitive soils, and watershed protection

were also frequently mentioned.

Roads open within a given proximity to non-motorized trails will be used as an indicator for

addressing protection of non-motorized trails in alternatives that address this issue. The indicator

mentioned previously for Issue 4 of general density of miles open to ORV use will also provide

an indicator for people concerned with “too much” motorized access on the Forest. Miles of road

open to ORV use within lynx analysis units (LAUs) will be used an indicator.

Issue 5: Dead ends may encourage illegal use

Several people expressed concerns that roads designated for ORV use and roads “dead-ending” in

the forest may lead to illegal use from the designated end point into the surrounding forest.

For the purpose of the analysis in this project, dead-ends will be defined as roads designated open

to ORV use that do not connect to another route open to use and are less than 0.25 mile long. The

number of dead-end routes will be displayed for each alternative. Miles of road open to ORV use

within riparian management zones (RMZs) will be also be used as an indicator of potential effects

to natural resources.

Issue 6: The Lack of Road operations and maintenance funding

The CNF receives a finite allocation of Federal funds to operate and maintain roads. Many people

expressed a belief that the amount of funding the Forest receives has decreased in the recent past

and that there will not be enough funding available to manage the road system to required

Chippewa Forest Off -Highway Vehicle Road Travel Access Project

Issues and Alternatives PR Number: 621-2

Date: 4/13/2007 Revision Number: v.04022007 Approval: ALV

This is a controlled document: 4

The official version is located in the project record at the Chippewa Forest Supervisor’s Office.

standards. Another concern involves whether or not enough funding will be available to maintain

the roadways and stream crossings for environmental protection and to provide brushing and

clearing to insure public safety.

One area of concern mentioned frequently is law enforcement, specifically if funding will be

sufficient to adequately patrol roads, give citations to people riding illegally, and therefore protect

resources. Another concern involves whether or not enough funding will be available to maintain

the roadways and stream crossings, and provide brushing and clearing to insure environmental

protection and public safety.

The operation and maintenance cost for each alternative will be listed. Law enforcement costs

will be shown separate from road operations and maintenance costs.

Issue 7: Environmental Justice access to traditional hunting and gathering areas

The designation of roads open to ORV use must be in compliance with Executive Order (EO)

12898 – Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low

Income Populations. The EO states that when low-income or minority populations of the affected

area, or county, are greater than twice the state percentage for low-income or minority

populations, an environmental justice assessment must be conducted. In Minnesota, twice the

State percentage is 17.4 percent for low-income populations and 11.0 percent for minority

populations. Conditions in Beltrami, Cass, and Itasca Counties and the Leech Lake Indian

Reservation meet these requirements.

The EO also requires the Forest Service to consider:

• Impacts of the proposed action to public health and whether or not impacts are present or

absent.

• Impacts of the proposed action to traditional hunting and gathering.

• Whether or not opportunities for public involvement in the proposed action are present or

absent.

The Forest Service considers potential impacts to public health from the proposed action to be

limited to road safety issues. Therefore, potential impacts to public health and safety will be

considered as part of the mixed-use analysis (highway-legal vehicles and off-road vehicles

traveling along the same roadway) and general topic of public road use safety.

Potential impacts of the proposed action to traditional hunting and gathering will be analyzed

spatially through a comparison of roads designated open within areas identified by Tribal

members as important traditional areas. Miles of roads open in identified traditional Tribal

hunting and gathering areas will be listed for each alternative.

Opportunities for public involvement, and the specific actions taken by Forest Service personnel

to involve Tribal and low income populations, are described earlier in this section (see Public

Involvement Opportunities for Tribal and Low Income Populations).

Issues Considered but Dropped from Further Analysis

Issue Dropped: Impacts of consolidating use on a smaller system

People expressed a concern that consolidating ORV use to a limited number of roads would lead

to negative impacts to road surfaces and create a need for increased maintenance. Many people

also believed that increased use on certain roads could create user safety problems through

Chippewa Forest Off -Highway Vehicle Road Travel Access Project

Issues and Alternatives PR Number: 621-2

Date: 4/13/2007 Revision Number: v.04022007 Approval: ALV

This is a controlled document: 5

The official version is located in the project record at the Chippewa Forest Supervisor’s Office.

increased traffic or increased interactions between highway-legal vehicles and ORVs. Some

people living along the proposed designated routes believed that consolidating use would lead to

increased noise and dust near their homes. Increased use on the designated routes could also lead

to increased impacts to natural resources along designated routes or within the surrounding

forested areas.

The Chippewa Forest Plan Monitoring Matrix (Table MON-4) includes two requirements that

relate to ORV use on the Forest and this issue. #4 Recreation Motor Vehicles (completed

annually) includes: To what extent is the Forest providing ORV opportunities; what are the effects

of the ORVs on the physical and social environment, and how effective are forest management

practices in managing ORV use. #5 Transportation System (completed every 1 to 5 years)

includes: To what extent is the Forest providing safe, cost effective, minimum access road system

for administrative and public use.

There is currently not enough scientific evidence to analyze effects regarding consolidating ORV

use onto a smaller network of roads, hence the issue will be dropped from further analysis for this

project. However, because the Forest Plan monitoring requirements are in place specifically to

gather such information, CNF staff expect to able to address these concerns with Forest Plan

monitoring data and adapt management practices as appropriate in the future.

Issue Dropped: Keep specific roads open

Many people requested that a specific road remain open based on their personal recreation habits.

Forest Service staff made note of these comments and incorporated them into alternatives based

on the consistency of the request with addressing other significant issues in the alternative. An

alternative that only considers specific road requests was not brought forward for a complete

analysis.

Issue Dropped: Law enforcement costs

One of the factors that can contribute to resource damage from ORV use is people riding off of

designated routes illegally. Many people commented that the CNF does not have enough funding

to provide sufficient law enforcement to enforce people riding on legal routes and, as a

consequence, illegal riding and resource damage would occur.

Because law enforcement costs are not a spatial issue, an alternative is not provided specifically

to address this issue. However, an estimate for law enforcement costs is listed for each alternative

for the deciding official to consider.

Mizheekayk

Millions for ATVs but health care has to wait?

Oberstar rebuts

Misinformation, falsehoods

Anti environmental movement explored further

Wise Use

The Wise Use Movement

Right-Wing Anti-Environmentalism

What's in a Name?

Alliance for America

The Theme of Private Property Rights

Free Market Environmentalism

Wise Use and the Right Wing

OK to Download, Copy & Print:

St. Louis County Wise Use

Anti Environmental in Minnesota?

UNDUE INFLUENCE

Author Tours: Minnesota

DULUTH NEWS-TRIBUNE

November 20, 1999

Wise-use activist says his fight is about 'saving civilized society'

DULUTH NEWS-TRIBUNE

Saturday, November 27, 1999

Environmentalists' influence cripples rural economies

DULUTH NEWS-TRIBUNE

Editorial from the November 24, 1999

Northeastern Minnesotans should make it known they aren't buying Wise Use founders' anti-environment line

DULUTH NEWS-TRIBUNE

December 28, 1999

Wise-use movement exists to benefit land into the future

technorati link

Ely Timberjay

07 Legislature changes ATV law for better, then worse.

DNR Forest Certification, separate from County Certification

Groups challenge forest certification

The O5 Law, or how the Range Roves the Forest

http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/07/01_robertsont_atvchange/

The Fink Plan and it's Funny Money

Dedicated Funding

Global Warming Legislation

http://ga6.org/campaign/global_warming/explanation

Support Strong Global Warming Solutions Legislation!

Talking Points

Issues in OHV Planning

Author
Tours:
Minnesota