A Koch and ExxonMobil-funded cabal is calling for an end to
national parks and privatization of all federally-owned land.…
Most Americans, whether they complain about the
government or not, have at least a passing interest in it remaining in
existence for a variety of benefits they seldom bemoan receiving. What
that means is that most Americans are in conflict with Republicans and
their masters the Koch brothers who have made no secret they want the
government eradicated with extreme prejudice from the top down.
Republicans have duly served the Kochs’ interests by taking every
opportunity to destroy every aspect of the government, except the
military-welfare complex, by starving it of funding just to bolster
their “government does not work” agenda.
A favorite target of Koch-Republicans is the
National Park system that Republicans have so drastically underfunded
that a Koch and ExxonMobil-funded organization is calling for an end to
national parks and privatization of all federally-owned land. The
argument being put forward by the executive director of Koch fossil fuel
organization, Reed Watson, is that since the National Park system is
hurting for funding, the only option is to first stop
creating national parks and then cheaply sell off those already in
existence. Why? Because according to the Koch brothers’ organization
calling to sell off all public land and national parks, “True conservation is taking care of the land and water you already have; we can protect it properly.”
The group pushing to sell off (privatize)
the national park system to the fossil fuel industry, and indeed, sell
off all public land to the highest corporate bidder, is the Koch and ExxonMobil-funded
Property and Environment Research Center (PERC). PERC, Exxon-Mobil, the
Koch brothers, and Republicans across the nation contend that no state,
federal, or local government has any right to own any land within
America’s borders; it is precisely the same argument trumpeted by
seditious anti-American rancher Cliven Bundy. Although Bundy’s
contention is that he, Cliven Bundy, retains “sole stewardship rights over government-owned land,”
he clearly fails to comprehend that the Kochs have a different vision
of what their stewardship as private corporate owners will entail.
Unless Cliven Bundy owns monumental drilling, mining, or lumber
operations, he should make no mistake that when the Kochs own all
government land, he will have no stewardship rights, grazing rights or
input into how the land is managed whatsoever.
The Kochs and ExxonMobil have already committed PERC
to publicly call for an end to the Land and Water Conservation Fund
(LWCF) because it is one of America’s most successful parks programs.
LWCF is not in financial jeopardy yet because Republicans have failed to
end its budget-neutral status.
LWCF is budget-neutral as a result of using funds from offshore oil and
gas development fees to fund projects across the country at the
federal, state and local levels. The LWCF program supports some of
nation’s “most iconic” national parks such as Grand Canyon and Yellowstone. It has also created
tens-of-thousands of outdoor projects the general public uses regularly
such as local parks and baseball diamonds in all 50 states. The Kochs
want those local parks, like national parks, wilderness areas, and all
federal land transferred to corporate ownership because “It just
kills the fossil fuel industry and its allies that there’s any scrap of
land that they can’t get their hands, or drilling rigs, on.” However, it is not for a lack of Republican efforts.
For example, last year as part of the ongoing Koch-funded and driven initiative to seize control of public lands from the federal government, Colorado Republicans, like Utah Republicans, introduced legislation
calling for jurisdiction over federally-owned national forests,
wilderness areas, national parks, and all Bureau of Land Management
land. Now with PERC’s blatantly public involvement and push to privatize
National Parks and federal lands, it appears the concerted effort
is fully underway to seize government property to satisfy the greed of
the Kochs and Exxon-Mobil by exploiting all federal land, including
federally-protected wilderness areas and national parks, for fossil fuel
profits. Three years ago Utah Mormons passed a law demanding that the
federal government cede its ownership, and immediately turn over the
titles of all federal lands in Utah including all wilderness areas and
national parks the state planned to sell to the Koch brothers to “manage” as “owners” exempt from federal environmental regulations and oversight.
The concept of selling off federal land to the
fossil fuel, mining, and lumber industry began in earnest in 1999 when
the Kochs’ PERC complained publicly that “fully a third of the land
area of the United States is owned by the federal government. Although
many Americans support the preservation of those lands, the failure of
socialism in the realm of resource economics is as evident as other
areas of the economy.” Resource economic failure in Koch parlance
means they cannot yet drill, mine, or log wherever they want and without
being held to environmental regulations. So PERC offered some Koch
reform criteria to convince the American people and disabuse the United
States government of the idea it has any right to own any land in
America. PERC asserts that, “land should be allocated to the
highest-valued use, transaction costs should be kept to a minimum
because auctioning off all public lands will enhance environmental
quality and economic efficiency through private rather than public
ownership.”
Americans should seriously start worrying, and
pushing back against, these vile attempts by the Koch brothers and
Republicans to sell off what is effectively the American people’s public
land; particularly the 282 million
Americans who visited the National Parks in 2011 alone. That figure
does not include visits to state and regional parks, wilderness areas,
or the many, many national monuments around the country or in and around
the nation’s capital that are owned and operated by the people’s
government; the government the Kochs and Republicans want eliminated.
It
is true that on their own, the Koch brothers are incapable of taking
over all federal, state, and local government land and properties, but
with Republicans doing their bidding in Congress and state legislatures,
and Koch-funded groups like PERC, Americans for Prosperity, the
Heritage Foundation and many others openly calling for the end of
government land ownership, the concept of public land, national parks,
or wilderness areas free of drilling, mining, and logging operations is
in jeopardy. It is not enough for the Kochs to take Americans’
government, workplace protections, pensions, healthcare, safe roads,
schools, and bridges to privatization and eventual ruin, they are
jockeying even now to take over Americans’ public land with little to no
outrage or push-back from the people.
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