January 1, 1997 A VISION FOR THE 21ST CENTURYwritten by Bud Richard
A VISION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee is a segment of the federal government - a government whose agencies have been captured by Friends of the Bitterroot, Earth Share, Earth First, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, and others. They are using the Endangered Species Act to hammer western states that are contiguous to "core areas, buffer zones, and corridors" linking a system called Y2Y - shorthand for a national park and land system that will stretch from the Yukon in Alaska to Yellowstone National Park in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming and beyond.
This grandiose plan would have people of western states (and Canadian provinces) living in small corridors with limited or no access to public lands and their natural resources.
All of this has come about
because we have made a religion of the environment and are in the process of
pantheistically populating it with many gods; i.e Bull Trout, Grizzly Bears, Spotted Owls,
Wolves, praire dogs-the list goes on and on and on..
Even more damaging is the fact that we have elected to allow
various federal agencies such as the Forest Service, The Bureau of Land Management, United
States Fish & Wildlife Service, and others, manage these public lands and wildlife. The
Endangered Species Act has effectively eliminated intervention by state agencies
which in turn limits for all citizens', life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Recently a federal environmental attorney, Michael Gerrard of New
York, ended an Associated Press article called the "Sagebrush Rebellion" by
talking about how we fought the Civil War to stop states from breaking with the union over
slavery about 130 years ago. He neglects to mention that we also fought the Revolutionary
War, a few years earlier, to break away from England that viewed the 'colonies' as their
possessions to do with as they wish-much as the "captive federal government
bureaucracies" views the states today; certainly the western states.
State and Federal Legislatures, at the behest of the citizens, have the potential of bringing sanity back into the environment management process.
It is our fervent hope that State and Federal Legislatures, and all people
of this Great Nation, will embark upon a course of action that will reestablish for all
citizens the basic tenants of our Constitution - the right of life, liberty and
pursuit of happiness within the sovereignty of the United States of America and take
appropriate action to smooth the path into the 21st Century.