Posted on 01/25/2015 5:47:34 PM PST by digger48
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - President Barack Obama is proposing to designate the vast majority of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a wilderness area, including its potentially oil-rich coastal plain, drawing an angry response from top state elected officials who see it as a land grab by the federal government.
"They've decided that today was the day that they were going to declare war on Alaska. Well, we are ready to engage," said U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and chair of the Senate energy committee.
The designation would set aside an additional nearly 12.3 million acres as wilderness, including the coastal plain near Alaska's northeast corner, giving it the highest degree of federal protection available to public lands. More than 7 million acres of the refuge currently are managed as wilderness.
The refuge's coastal plain has long been at the center of the struggle between conservationists and advocates of greater energy exploration in the U.S. Political leaders in Alaska have supported allowing for exploration and production within the coastal plain. They have opposed attempts to further restrict development on federal lands, which comprise about two-thirds of the state, including within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
A resolution passed the state Legislature with bipartisan support last year urging Congress to allow for exploration and development on the coastal plain. A federal lawsuit brought by the state over the Interior Department's refusal to consider a proposed exploration plan for the refuge's coastal plain is pending. The state in 2013 proposed an exploration plan that it said was aimed at determining the true oil and gas potential in the refuge.
(Excerpt) Read more at wthr.com ...
not until the second round...if necessary.
as gay polars dont breed.....they will eventually die off on their own
Snip:
“However, the proposal is likely to face stiff resistance in the Republican-controlled Congress. Murkowski said in an interview that Obama is going after something “that is not possible in this Congress.” She said she sees it as an attempt by the administration to “score some environmental points” and to rile passions ahead of another announcement by Interior in the coming days that Murkowski said she was told would propose putting off-limits to development certain areas of the offshore Arctic.”
“The department pegged the timing of Obama’s announcement in part to recent legislation proposed in Congress and talks involving potentially opening the refuge to development. Earlier this month, U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, introduced a bill that would allow for development on the coastal plain. On Wednesday, in his first State of the State speech, Walker talked about working with the congressional delegation to tap oil within the refuge. Murkowski referenced the refuge - and the economic benefits that she said could come from unlocking a part of it - in an energy-focused Republican weekly address on Saturday.”
Obama helping murky.
Look at Google Earth and check out the area where we drill for oil...*LOL* Wilderness, my a s s....
Congress apparently must agree to this scheme to cut back oil and gas exploration. We will see what they are made of. Or, not. But, Zer0 still has his pen.
Noting that the Constitution doesn’t permit the feds to seize intrastate land with the mere stroke of a pen (corrections welcome), what was the constitutional status of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before the feds administratively took over? Was it possibly privately owned land which would raise concern about fed compliance with 5th Amendment? Or was it state-owned land which would raise concern about fed compliance with the Constitution’s Clause 17 of Section 8 of Article I?
I suspect that the feds never paid a dollar for the land which would be required with both statutes, the consent of the state legislature also required in Clause 17.
In fact, if this land grab is a Clause 17 issue, then payment with the consent of the state legislature would be required to expand the refuge imo.
Am I overlooking anything?
I’d love to send BO up there, alone, with a tarp and a knife, and come back in a week and see how he did.
Purchase from Russia by the FEDS, not by individuals in Alaska. Like many western states, I believe there are conditions of statehood, among which are federal claims to land.
What about all the land stolen from the Indians and Mexicans. And wasn't the Louisiana Purchase a similar deal. What kind of conditions for statehood was faced by those states involved in the purchase?
I’m sure it varies by state.
Land taken ultimately by force almost always has some technical legal status justifying its current control, at least in Western Civilization.
The US Govt bought Alaska from Russia and owned every square inch of it. But as they did with other states, they made Alaska a state, and out of that Alaska got land that the state owns. The tribes got some of the land also.
The federal govt owns the land in question, and has owned it since they bought it from Russia. Contrary to what you think, the Refuge is not being expanded or enlarged, it is being re-designated from refuge to wilderness, which means it would have a higher level of protection.
As for privately owned land, there is not much of that in Alaska.
Here's the real issue.
When oil/gas is produced on land owned by the federal govt, the federal govt shares the royalty with the state in which that land is located.
In all states, except Alaska, the feds gives the state 50% of the royalty. In Alaska, they get 90% of the royalty. So if ANWR were drilled, Alaska would get 90% of the royalty.
Alaska also has the drilling rights to the inner continental shelf, from the low tide line out 3 miles. Oil can be produced from this submerged land, it is the same oil as in ANWR. But they can't get any oil company to drill it because the cost of the infrastructure needed to get the oil to market is prohibitive. But, if the feds were to open ANWR to drilling, the infrastructure would be built, after which, the potential offshore drillers could use the same infrastructure.
So if the feds were to open ANWR to drilling, Alaska would get 90% of the royalty from ANWR and 100% of the royalty on the offshore oil.
Its a pretty good deal for Alaska, but doesn't do much for the US Treasury or the US taxpayer.
But, Obama opened up drilling in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea. 3 oil companies own leases in these federal waters. Shell drilled there in 2012, but damaged both their drill ships and had to send them back to Korea to be repaired. They were planning on returning in 2015, but with price of oil, they may delay.
All of this is in federal waters, so the feds get 100% of the royalty and don't have to give Alaska any of it. Its a good deal for the US treasury and US taxpayer. That's where we need to be drilling.
Russia Plans World’s Longest Tunnel, a Link to Alaska (Update4)
By Yuriy Humber and Bradley Cook - April 18, 2007 16:38 EDT
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a0bsMii8oKXw
Somehow, I find this story disturbing. Is Barry Soetoro keeping something from the American people?
Thank you for that information. But I still have concerns about who owns the land according to the Constitution. (Federal government is corrupt in many peoples’ opinion, so everything it does must be questioned.)
Given the remote possibility that you have not seen the following video, it explains that feds are basically supposed to surrender all federal territory within the borders of any new state to the state upon admission to the Union.
Steven Pratt, Bound by Oath to Support THIS Constitution
Since the land didn’t become a refuge until 1960, do you know why the feds held onto the land when it became a state? I understand that several states are now asking that question about federal land within their borders.
Or if the land that eventually became the refuge actually belonged to the State of Alaska after Alaska was admitted to the Union, then Clause 17 of Section 8 remains a possible issue.
But regardless of Clause 17, the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to establish intrastate wildlife protection refuges, although wildlife does need “government” protection imo.
Again, I’m just trying to establish constitutional ownership by feds of refuge and constitutionally justify of how feds are using land.
Perhaps the executive staff should start with a wilderness refuge in the District of Columbia...say on the east end of town. One square block of wilderness, and if we have to plant the trees to start it...fine.
Wish the pit of hell that vomited him up to be a curse to the world would re-open and suck him back down. Taking most of DC with him would be a helpful as well - while they are “in session” of course. Working those 3 hour days a few days a week, signing hundreds of pages of bills that are never read, falling all over each other to get on camera for those moral grandstanding moments, etc.
Good point.
I am also well informed on this issue of transferring federal lands to the individual states. Each of these western states in which the feds own a lot of land have their individual movements but beneath the surface they are all linked together thru the think tanks like American Lands Council, Montana Policy Institute, etc. They are all connected by funding and nobody knows where the money is coming from because it is dark money, but we can probably accurately speculate that the money is coming from the extractive industries and real estate developers. If you look at the legislative efforts, you see that the model legislation was written by ALEC, and each state has tailored the ALEC legislation to their state.
So rather than talk about this land transfer movement and where it stands in Alaska, or Arizona, or Nevada, it is better to talk about it in Utah, since they are the furtherest along in their attempts to take over the federal lands. What happens in Utah will affect what happens in Alaska, or Arizona, or Nevada.
Utah passed their Transfer Of Public Lands Act(which was based on ALEC's legislation) more than two years ago and set the deadline as Jan 1, 2015. But that date came and went and the feds didn't turn the land over to Utah. So now Utah has to determine how much taxpayer money they are going to spend to pursue this thru Congress or the courts. Or maybe thru the milita?
Meanwhile, just 6 weeks ago, Congress passed a big piece of land legislation involving federal lands in all these western states. It was one of the last things congress did in the lame duck session of the last congress. And they were sneaky about. There were numerous pieces of legislation involving the lands in each state. So congress rolled all these pieces of legislation into an amendment that they added by a voice vote to the Defense Spending Authorization Act of 2015(must pass). The freepers have short memories and even though there were numerous FR threads on this land legislation last December, they have all forgotten about it.
Six weeks ago the freepers were cussin and spittin about Congress' "land grab". Now they are cussin and spittin about Obama's "land grab".
That’s a mistake imo. Mr. Pratt doesn’t regurgitate conspiracy theories as you seem to be thinking, but references carefully researched material from the Articles of Confederation which deals with land disposal in conjunction with supportive clauses in the Constitution. He also provides excerpts from Supreme Court cases to substantiate his points about possible improprieties with the some of the land that the federal government owns, particularly in the western states.
On Sunday, President Barack Obama released an anti-oil drilling environmental video shot aboard Air Force One–an aircraft that has a 53,611 gallon fuel capacity.
The video, which shows Obama aboard Air Force One, is interspersed with scenes of arctic animals and wildlife landscapes, reports National Public Radio (NPR). It’s all part of Obama’s ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) newly proposed plan to ban roads, permanent structures, vehicles, drilling, and mining on 12.28 million acres in ANWR.
On Saturday, Obama flew Air Force One over 8,000+ miles to India to discuss global warming and other issues.
Video on above website and YouTube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hey_WIAFVA#t=18
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