Protecting Property Rights From National Heritage Areas And Earmarks

By Tom Remington

Let’s face it! Hunters, fishermen and all outdoor enthusiasts can’t enjoy their sports if they have no place to do it. Most states have at least some level of public lands but most of us still rely on private landowners’ unselfish willingness to allow you and I on their land. We have to respect the wishes of the landowner. It only makes sense. As a landowner myself, I want to be able to have a say in what I do with my land and who enters it and for what purpose. This is all part of being a free American and many of us enjoy it. As outdoor recreationists we need to do a better job in creating good, respectful landowner relationship programs.

America is becoming a conglomeration of special interest groups, each with their bent on controlling and manipulating the system in order to protect and promote their specialty. While the same could be argued for special interests as with property rights, not all is the best interest of free Americans. What I see are at least two specific areas that threaten my interests in hunting and fishing and as an American landowner.

The first are the efforts being put forth by special interests to promote their own thing. I see nothing wrong with that act in itself. I shouldn’t because as someone who works everyday to promote and protect the American heritage of hunting, I am very much a special interest group - at least to some degree. My efforts encompass all hunting and all fishing and is not focused on one aspect of each sporting interest like bow hunting or fly fishing but nonetheless, I am a special interest.

The trouble that erupts happens when these special interest groups attempt to destroy one aspect of their own sport for the sake of self-promotion of their narrowly focused area. Take hunting for example. Bow hunting is a rapidly growing aspect of hunting. I personally admire dedicated bow hunters because of the time and discipline they have to put into their sport and the difficulties they face. Bow hunters have organized into clubs in order to form a more powerful coalition to promote what they do. Is this wrong? Absolutely not. I’m not a bow hunter but I fully support what they do. Bow hunting is very much a part of America’s hunting heritage and I will fight to preserve that. Should bow hunters work to promote their great sport by lobbying against other disciplines? Of course not. Any group that would do that is elitist, self-centered and has not vision for the overall well being of their sport.

I am a rifle hunter. It is what I prefer to do. I never hunted with a scope prior to the 1980s for a number of reasons but with the passage of antler restrictions and other similar laws, I thought it wise to equip myself with something that would help me with target identification. If I wanted to promote rifle scope hunting alone, I could probably find quite a number of hunters who would support that. What I shouldn’t be doing, is promoting my form of hunting by discrediting any or all others.

The second issue affecting me/us is the continued shrinking of available land to hunt and fish on. Obviously programs need to be created to encourage landowners to leave their property open for recreation.

Keeping our focus for now on special interests, these groups are doing more each day to remove land from the hands of landowners and for the sake of this argument, lands used for outdoor recreation. What’s disturbing about these efforts is that some are being funded by the federal government through private sector special interest groups.

One such program, which is part of our Interior Department, is called National Heritage Areas program. If you visit the website, you’ll find information about what they are doing and it all seems like well-intended programs. As a matter of fact, you’ll find this statement.

A “national heritage area” is a place designated by the United States Congress where natural, cultural, historic and recreational resources combine to form a cohesive, nationally-distinctive landscape arising from patterns of human activity shaped by geography. These areas tell nationally important stories about our nation and are representative of the national experience through both the physical features that remain and the traditions that have evolved within in them.

It all sounds wonderful doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to preserve our national heritage? The problem is it’s not that simple. As a matter of fact, it gets quite complex. As a property owner, the last thing you should want is government, beginning at the federal level, dictating to you how to use your land. What if you should happen to buy a piece of land that a special interest group in another state lobbied Congress in order for them to designate your land as a “National Heritage Area”? And what if that’s what happened and Congress used your own tax dollars to strip you of your property rights leaving you with nothing? And what if that special interest group had authority to control virtually every aspect of your property, even to the point of manipulating it in order to make loads of money?

Now, that’s not right! But that’s what can and does happen!

The National Center for Public Policy Research issued a press release today announcing that they have sent a letter to the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and others, asking Congress to stop funding and supporting the National Heritage Areas programs.

The following letter — signed by a diverse group of more than 110 organizations, elected officials and citizens — was delivered on September 4 to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader John Boehner, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Pete V. Domenici, House Committee on Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, House Committee on Natural Resources Ranking Member Don Young as well as all the members of the House and Senate Natural Resources Committees.

Here is the complete press release as issued by the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Hypocrisy Watch: Congress Expands Opportunity for Self-Dealing While Claiming Historic Progress on Government Ethics

114 Groups and Local Leaders Call for End to National Heritage Areas

Washington, D.C. - At the very time Senators were congratulating themselves for passing what they termed “the most sweeping ethics reform in history,” they approved a series of “national heritage area” bills that significantly increase the potential for self-dealing and corruption, says the National Center for Public Policy Research.

In response, The National Center for Public Policy Research brought together 114 policy groups, grassroots leaders, local government officials, sportsmen groups, civil rights organizations, property rights advocates, farmers, ranchers, and individuals to call on Congress not to support the creation of additional national heritage areas or federal funding for heritage area management entities, support groups, or groups that lobby for or advocate the creation of new heritage areas.

The letter is being delivered to the House and Senate leadership and the leadership and membership of the respective natural resource committees.

Among the letter’s signers are the National Taxpayers Union, the 60 Plus Association, American Family Association, FreedomWorks, the Family Research Council, Partnership for the West, Gun Owners of America, two county supervisors, two mayors, eight aldermen, one city councilman and over 90 others.

National heritage areas are creations of Congress in which special interest groups, whose work at times has been funded through secret Congressional earmarks, team up with the National Park Service to influence decisions over local land use previously made exclusively by elected local governments and private landowners.

“If the investigations into earmarking abuse tell us anything, it is that we need greater accountability, not less. National heritage areas push us toward less government accountability,” said David Ridenour, vice president of the National Center for Public Policy Research. “Committees composed of unelected and unaccountable individuals - some of whom have a financial stake in local land use decisions - are given substantial influence over these very decisions through national heritage area designations. If you think power corrupts elected officials, just wait and see what it does to unelected ones.”

Dr. Ronald Utt of the Heritage Foundation has revealed another way special interests can use national heritage areas inappropriately. He describes how a federally-funded partnership seeking Congressional authority to manage a proposed new heritage area to cover parts of four eastern states is apparently planning to use its management authority, if granted by Congress, to give itself a “near monopoly on real estate development opportunities” within the proposed heritage area. Such a monopoly presumably would be immensely profitable for this select group of politically-connected individuals.

“National heritage areas corrupt the principle of representative government,” the coalition letter warns, “by giving unelected, unaccountable special interests the authority to develop land management plans and federal money with which to finance their efforts.”

“National heritage areas are nothing more than government sanctioned looting of private property rights, and in many instances, minorities and lower income folks bear the biggest brunt of this theft,” said Deneen Borelli, Fellow with the Project 21 black leadership network. “Property rights, the hallmark of liberty, are being eroded by special interest groups and their government allies who promote national heritage areas.”

The letter also thanks Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) for his “leadership on this important issue.”

“National heritage areas drive a federally-funded, special interest wedge between citizens and their local government,” said Peyton Knight, director of environmental and regulatory affairs for The National Center for Public Policy Research. “The federal government should not be forcing taxpayers in one state to pay for special interest lobbying in another.”

To view the letter, go to www.nationalcenter.org/NHACoalitionLetter0907.pdf.

To read what others are saying about national heritage areas, go to www.nationalcenter.org/HeritageAreaQuotes0907.pdf.

The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a non-partisan, non-profit educational foundation based in Washington, D.C.

There is quite a wide and diverse group of representatives supporting the efforts of the NCPPR.

In response, The National Center for Public Policy Research brought together 114 policy groups, grassroots leaders, local government officials, sportsmen groups, civil rights organizations, property rights advocates, farmers, ranchers, and individuals to call on Congress not to support the creation of additional national heritage areas or federal funding for heritage area management entities, support groups, or groups that lobby for or advocate the creation of new heritage areas.

Included in that diverse group of 114, is U.S. Hunting Today(Black Bear Blog and Skinny Moose Media). I proudly signed the letter being sent to Congress, et. al. and provided a statement, which was also sent along with the letter. If you view the pdf file of the letter, you can scroll down immediately following the letter and find the list of those who support this effort. My name and affiliation to U.S. Hunting Today is included.

When you view the pdf file that contains many statements made by various representatives of supporting groups, you can read the statement that I made.

What Sportsmen Are Saying…

“As a hunter, I want to be able to get on land to hunt, but I’m an American first who respects the property rights of landowners. This isn’t a government issue. We shouldn’t advocate for the federal government to take away the rights of others in the name of
appeasing special interest groups.”
-Thomas K. Remington, Managing Editor, U.S. Hunting Today

I would encourage all readers to take the time to study and review this issue. As with many government programs, there is far more than initially meets the eye. I am not advocating that we as Americans stop working toward the preservation of our national heritage but it has to be done the right way. I think Joseph T. Waldo, President, The Law Firm of Waldo and Lyle, P.C. put it best when he said:

“Protecting our heritage is a noble ambition, however these matters need to be handled at the local level by those closest to the issues at hand. It is important that the fundamental right of private property not be threatened by more misguided federal legislation.”

Even if you don’t see that this program can potentially strip Americans of their property rights, at least see it as a waste of tax dollars at a time when government has out-of-control spending, as most of these National Heritage Areas get funded through earmarks.

As hunters and fishermen struggling at an almost constant rate to find lands where we can enjoy ourselves, the last thing we need to be doing is advocating programs that remove more open land from everyone who recreates.

Contact your representative, today!

Tom Remington