Reid's Folly
By by Thomas Myers
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Chamber Post
October 31, 2008
In a spectacular tribute to form over substance, Senate Majority Leader Reid intends to spend the last remaining legislative days of 2008 pushing an omnibus federal land-grab bill that will severely hamstring our energy independence and significantly weaken an already floundering American economy. The "Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2008," added as an amendment by Sen. Bingaman to H.R. 5151, combines more than 130 public land, water, and resource bills into a 1,000-page bill that withdraws millions of acres of public land from energy development, increases government spending by more than $4 billion, and adds even greater restrictions to federally managed lands.
Surprised? So were we when, in the midst of votes on the financial bailout package, Senate Majority Leader Reid announced that he would bring the Senate back after the November elections for a lame-duck session in an effort to pass this ill-considered bill.
At a time when American families are struggling with their mortgages, excessive food and gas prices, and uncertain financial conditions, it is difficult to understand why Senator Reid would bring a bill that only serves to exacerbate those problems. Specifically, the bill would withdraw more than 3 million acres of land from energy development and put it under federal control. For example, it withdraws 1.2 million acres of land in Wyoming from mineral leasing and energy exploration, which includes approximately 331 million barrels of recoverable oil and 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. In addition, another 1.93 million U.S. acres would be designated as "wilderness areas," thereby preventing all major recreation on them and prohibiting any new oil and gas leasing.
The federal government already controls upward of 650 million acres of land (almost 1/3 of the entire United States), with many suffering from chronic maintenance backlogs. The National Park Service alone estimates the maintenance backlog of projects on the federal lands it manages at $9 billion.
Nevertheless, this bill would shift millions of additional acres to federal control, cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and further erode private property ownership rights.
And the bill is not just about a federal land-grab either; it also is loaded with what can only be described as absurd pork-barrel spending:
$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. (The Garden currently has $12.4 million in annual revenues, and net assets of $59 million.)
$1 billion water project in California intended to settle a lawsuit with environmental groups. (The minimum measurement of success outlined in the settlement is the restoration of just 500 salmon.)
$1 million annually for a five year Wolf Compensation and Prevention Program designed to assist property owners with non-lethal efforts to prevent predatory behavior by wolves.
Sen. Tom Coburn has done yeoman’s work by vigilantly preventing these measures from coming to the floor -- and he has our thanks for it. But now Sen. Reid has rolled them all up into a "something for everyone" omnibus in order to garner enough votes for passage.
The Chamber strongly supports Sen. Coburn in his continued opposition, sending a letter to Congress urging them to vote against the omnibus bill. After all, shackling U.S. energy exploration and development at such a critical time would harm personal property rights and substantially jeopardize America’s already fragile economy.
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