Posted on 04/25/2012 7:37:33 AM PDT by opentalk
Legislation pending in the U.S. House of Representatives that is being falsely touted as improving U.S. border security would instead "have the potential to devastate 54 of America's national parks, historic sites, national monuments and other popular park icons and negatively impact the nation's economy," according to a warning issued today by the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees (CNPSR).
H.R. 1505, the mistitled "National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act," would gut a century's worth of proven federal lands protection, potentially opening up millions of pristine acres of national parks to off-road vehicle use, road construction, air strips and helipads, fencing, base installations, and other disruptions.
This radical legislation introduced by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) would suspend the enforcement of almost all the nation's environmental laws on all lands under the jurisdiction of the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture within 100 miles of the northern border with Canada and the southern border with Mexico. It would change the targeted national park and other federal areas into security zones and leave priceless resources unprotected.
...Among the National Park Service areas that fall within H.R. 1505's proposed 100-mile zone of potential devastation are Acadia, Big Bend, Carlsbad Caverns, Cuyahoga Valley, Glacier, Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Guadalupe Mountains, Isle Royale, Joshua Tree, North Cascades, Olympic, Saguaro, Theodore Roosevelt, Voyageurs, and Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve.
The combined total acreage of these 15 parks is 21,657,399, nearly 25 percent of the overall footprint U.S. National Park System. They are located within the states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Texas, and Washington.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
You link is broken.....but this sentence.....
“According to anonymous eye witnesses, these Border Patrol stations are fortresses capable of keeping Obama’s Civilian Security Force (or a Chinese army) housed, fed, armed, and fully equipped to control the population of the United States.”
Reeks of tin-foil hat stuff.
Let me tell you, get half the environmental regulations out of MI and we will boom.
There is no question the EPA, environmentalists are in the way of freedom, liberty and economic growth.
The link works
http://www.standupamericaus.org/politics-washington-dc/fatal-betrayal-of-america-hr-1505/
Media Blackout...Canada and U.S. borders to be removed under new agreements.
DHS | Beyond the Border: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness
http://www.dhs.gov/files/publications/beyond-the-border.shtm
New deal to ease trade and travel at U.S.-Canada border
http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/deal+ease+trade+travel+Canada+border/5827393/story.html
The plan includes:
• Enhanced tracking of travellers in both countries.
• Joint screening of cargo coming from foreign countries to Canada and the U.S.
This is what I get...
The connection has timed out
The server at www.standupamericaus.org is taking too long to respond.
The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments.
If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer’s network connection.
If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.
Oh and BTW, if you’ve ever crossed the US/Canadian border since 9/11, you’d understand WHY we do need an easy way to cross.
Trucks wait 2 hours at the Blue Water Bridge. Cars wait with them unless you have a NEXUS pass. We have one. If you want to be paranoid, fine with me, but when my hubby, myself, my two blonde/blue eyed daughters and the dog, pulling a camper can speed on through driving to Toronto for the Harry Potter exhibit, the whole thing works for me.
AND the EPA regulations being beat down? Win/win!
Pure tin foil hat looney tunes
An example of the problems this bill attempts to address:
As we earlier reported (June 13 Human Events page 12), Environmental rules are hampering Border Patrol operations near the Mexican border, even as the agency doles out millions in taxpayer dollars meant to offset damage to endangered species.
Because of a pond inhabited by endangered pupfish, Border Patrol officers can use their vehicles to pursue illegal aliens only if the chase stays on the main road. If the pursuit veers into a 42-acre sector near the pond, officers must continue the chase on foot or horseback.
Border Patrol agents can’t drive vehicles into designated Wilderness areas, as well as certain areas of national parks and monuments.
snip
Agreements between the Homeland Security and Interior Departments on how best to protect the ecosystem are frustrating lawmakers who say they also prevent agents from conducting routine patrols.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=44433
Another excellent article explaining why this bill is needed and why greenies and socialists everywhere are against it:
Off Limits: Homeland Security & Green Groups Fight Over the Borderlands
by Cara Daniel, Green Watch, February 2012 (view as PDF here: GW0212)
Summary: The federal government has set aside hundreds of millions of acres of public land for ranching and forestry, national parks and wilderness areas, and it tasks various agencies to monitor and regulate land conservation and use. Because over 20 million acres of these federally-protected lands can be entered from across the U.S. border, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is required to patrol often difficult and hard-to-reach terrain. The job performed by the U.S. Border Patrol is made even harder by restrictions that require border security projects to abide by a myriad of environmental protection laws. Recently a bill in Congress, H.R. 1505, the National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act, was introduced to immunize DHS from many of these federal restrictions. Green groups are up in arms. They fear that DHS enforcement will hurt the environment and trample on individual rights. But many Americans living along the increasingly crime-ridden borderlands disagree.
https://www.capitalresearch.org/2012/02/gw-test/
I'm not seeing this as a bad thing. ‘Bout time that the “people” got access to some of these areas of “their” parks.
Understood, there needs to be safeguards from overreach.
For instance, from the second article I posted:
“What about civil liberties concerns? Opponents of H.R. 1505 worry that the open-ended phrase “activities that assist in securing the border” can mean anything without checks and balances. They say H.R. 1505 is a government overreach giving DHS too much power over what Americans can and cannot do on public lands.”
While not necessarily nefarious this phrase needs to be much more specific.
I’m not too worried about abuse on the northern border. Budget limitations alone should deter that. However I’m not sure I see the need for the microwave towers in Glacier so there should perhaps be some type of check on the power of DHS in this bill.
DHS handling of TSA and callousness toward the average citizen, seniors and children. Their ever expanding presence to roads, bus stations, partnering with local law enforcement. Memos implying people that are conservative are a security risk..Growing and giving them more power is a concern.
This radical legislation introduced by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) would suspend the enforcement of almost all the nation’s environmental laws on all lands under the jurisdiction of the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture within 100 miles of the northern border with Canada and the southern border with Mexico.
If that is the case, why is the grand Staircase Escalante administered by the Bureau of Land Management not included?
It is the largest park in the lower 48 and is not under the Dept of interior or agriculture.
The environmental part is not my concern.
TSA should be abolished! This bill deals with the Border Patrol more so than it’s parent agency.
Mexican border area makes sense, giving DHS extra power around circumference of US seems to add more to the big brother mentality.
Unless I am misinterpreting this, it includes the whole southern tip of FL, everglades.
..shall apply to all sections of the international land and maritime borders of the United States within 100 miles of such borders
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Some of these parks are in areas where there are no maintained roads and winter renders the borders impassable. It isn’t just infiltration routes. Teddy Rooseveldt National Park? Not even close to the border. Brutal terrain to go cross country, and in winter?<p.By the time the US secures the borders, it won’t be to keep others out, it will be to keep us in.
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