Obama Signs Bill Protecting 2 Million Acres as Wilderness(Or how to kill off new revenues)

AP ^ | 3/30/09

[bestintxas]

President Barack Obama has signed legislation that sets aside more than 2 million acres as protected wilderness.

Obama said Monday the most valuable things in life are those already possessed as he signed a massive public lands management act at the White House. The law protects land from California's Sierra Nevada mountains to the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia, as well as expands wilderness protection efforts.

[bestintxas]

This really makes sense to choke off sources of income when we need it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123792991709930321.html

[tatsinfla]

how much of this land was oil laden?

[wk4bush2004]

Does this include the shale oil fields out in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming?

[dforest]

It is so bizarre when the democrats spout energy independence yet they smother any kind of independence we could have.

All democrats do is leave us more reliant on foreign sources.

Maybe that is what they really want. There is no way to justify what they do.

[THX 1138]

The law -- a collection of nearly 170 separate measures -- represents one of the largest expansions of wilderness protection in a quarter-century.

Ah, another milestone for Milhous... /sarc

[CindyDawg]

IMO there should be no public federal land. It should belong and be maintained by the states,

[RepublitarianRoger2]

Hey, when we’re all flat broke, living in shacks and foraging for food in the wilderness, we’ll need that land. Makes sense to me.

[caver]

Wilderness areas also prohibit any type of motorized vehicles. You can only hike into these areas. Look at what they tried to do to Bobby Unser when he got lost on a snowmobile in a wilderness area in a blizzard.

[LibWhacker]

Twice the size of Rhode Island. Oh, these socialists are just getting started. In another decade or two, they’ll be setting aside much larger areas, say twice the size of Kansas? Even then I doubt Americans would wake up.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Isn’t 70% of the USA National Park property? I know I’ve read that,somewhere.

[YOUGOTIT]

Discussed before:

Some Information from the site of Senator Coburn:
• The bill blocks the development of both renewable and oil and gas energy resources. One bill in the package locks up at least 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and more 300 million barrels of oil in a single field, which is equal to nearly twice as much natural gas as all American homes use in a year.

• The bill includes 92 National Wild and Scenic River designations covering 1,100 miles that will prohibit any pipeline or transmission crossing.

• In 19 cases, the bill permanently withdraws federal lands from future mineral and geothermal leasing.

• Since the Senate last considered the lands bill, Secretary Salazar has withdrawn major energy leases in Utah (77) and Wyoming (8) that were the subject of a coordinated lawsuit brought by extreme anti-energy groups. Secretary Salazar specifically delayed offshore drilling and the development of oil shale.

Examples of wasteful spending and egregious earmarks:

• An estimated $1 billion for a water project in California for the restoration of 500 salmon.
• $3.5 million to celebrate the 450th Anniversary of St Augustine, Florida in 2015.

• $250,000 for the Park Service to study whether Alexander Hamilton’s boyhood estate at St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands is suitable for designation as a new National Park unit.

• $5 million for the National Tropical Botanical Garden to operate and maintain gardens in Hawaii and Florida.

• A new ocean exploration program that is tasked with conducting “scientific voyages to locate, define, and document historic shipwrecks.”
http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=RightNow.Home

[icwhatudo]

Imagine if under this new “park” was the worlds largest concentration of “clean coal”.

Imagine if the second largest concentration was owned by his major campaign contributor.

That was the essence of “coal-gate”

One of many scandals the corrupt clinton crime machine was involved in.

[Russ]

And once again the silence from the Republican side of the aisle is deafening...

[Frantzie]

The Saudis want us to be their energy serfs so they spent $800 million to get a Muslim elected. The American public has no clue. We are paying our gas money to allow Islamic invasion of the west.

[Islaminaction]

That is because he wants to destroy us.

[BallyBill]

"This land is my land, this land is your land..."

Sing Along Everybody, I'm sure we need some new words though.

[sauropod]

This bill is fascist. It containst the totalitarian “Paleontological Resources Protection Act.”

I spoke to someone on the other side about this. It is intended as a big “eff you” to Tom Coburn, who had bottled up this toxic regulation for a long time.

May our chains rest lightly.

[huck von finn]

They finally compromised on that, from what I'm reading here:

http://www.blnz.com/news/2009/03/16/Senate_moves_forward_wilderness_bill_3011.html

"A sixth provision, softening a provision to impose criminal penalties for collecting some fossilized rocks on federal land, was included in the final bill."

So Coburn must have been successful in that respect.

[editor-surveyor]

A democrat in the White House means enviro-lunacy; this is now a given.

[sergeantdave]

The little fascist pig just signed over trillions in natural resources to the Chicoms so they keep buying our debt. We will one day have to fight a war to use our resources.