S303 ALERT! Gives EPA Foothold on Private Property

Call Your Senators Today!

As feared by everyone, the U.S. Senate and Harry Reid are bringing those fears to fruition and are set to destroy America’s future by taking all the private property they can with one bill, unless we act this week!

It used to be called the CLEAR (Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources) Act of 2010, but Mr. Reid pulled a legislative trick and substituted the CLEAR Act for a completely unrelated, bill S. 303, and now calls it the “America’s Great Outdoors Bill of 2010.”

Call your Senators today and demand they oppose S. 303 in its entirety.  Demand that they oppose every section of this bill.  No part of this bill is good for America’s landowners.

S. 303 was introduced and passed by the Senate in early 2009, as the “Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 2009.”  It was amended and passed in the House and sent back to the Senate for passage where it has languished until now.  In a near midnight Sunday session with no one on the Senate floor, Reid asked for unanimous consent to substitute the CLEAR Act for S. 303.  The President of the Senate said: “Without objection, granted,” and S. 303 was placed on the Calendar for consideration.

Fred Kelly Grant explains how Reid slyly made the switch and the devastating implications the bill has for private property rights in today’s report. 

In this one maneuver, Mr. Reid used S.303 as a shell bill completely gutting it, added 1,003 pages with 108 separate land bills, and renamed it “America’s Great Outdoors Bill of 2010.”

Among the bills rolled into this amendment are 13 sections covering the National Park Service, National Wilderness Preservation System, Forest Service, Department of Interior, National Heritage Sites, BLM, Rivers and Trails, Water and Hydropower, Insular Areas, Wildlife Conservation and Water Quality Protection and Restoration, Oceans and Fisheries, Indian Homelands and Trust Land, and Miscellaneous.

This means additional wilderness, wild and scenic rivers and trails designations, the expansion of EPA authority to control ocean beaches through regulations that will adversely affect all farms and ranches, and multiple land transfers, among other significant negative implications for America.

Early estimates are that this bill will cost Americans a minimum of $18 billion dollars, and that is just the cost of the bill, not the long term loss to our local and national economies as more of America’s land is removed from productive use.

Mr. Reid is pulling out all the stops before the old Congress adjourns.  We must try to stop this bill before we lose more of our land and more of our liberty.

There is no time for any member of Congress to actually consider this type of massive legislation, some of which has not even had a hearing.

Contact your U.S. Senator and demand they oppose S.303, Reid’s massive Omnibus Lands Bill.

Liberty Counsel Posts "Naughty or Nice" List

As part of the eighth annual "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign," Liberty Counsel, a nationwide public interest civil liberties law firm at http://www.LC.org, publishes a Naughty and Nice list which catalogs retailers that seek to profit from Christmas shoppers but exclude their stores and advertisements from references to Christmas. You can help save Christmas when you pledge to be a "Friend" to those entities that recognize Christmas and a "Foe" to Christmas censors.

To find out which retailers recognize Christmas and which are "Grinches," read Liberty Counsel's Naughty & Nice List at http://lc.org/index.cfm?PID=17981. You can also print this list and take it with you when you shop.

Victory for Babies!

Via WRN:

Plans to offer second trimester abortions in downtown Madison have been scrapped. Nearly two years ago UW Hospital, the UW Medical Foundation, and Meriter Hospital approved plans to provide the controversial abortions at the Madison Surgery Center.

Pro-Life Wisconsin was among those who held protested, aired public service announcements and petitioned in opposition to the plans. The group applauds the decision to cancel the clinic.

“This really shows that pro-life grassroots activism works,” says Communications Director Virginia Zignego.

ACTION ALERT!! Stop the START Treaty...

Call your U.S. Senators and tell them not to let Obama and Harry Reid's lame duck Senate repudiate Ronald Reagan!  

Reagan was a consistent stalwart booster of U.S. anti-missile defenses.  He won the Cold War by standing firm on his plan to build an Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM)  Treaty.  Obama's New START Treaty ties our hands against building anti-missile defenses to protect American lives from all the bad guys of the world.  The lame duck Senate absolutely must NOT ratify this dangerous treaty. 

The Senate has never voted its consent on an arms control treaty in a lame duck session, and we should not start now! 

Here is a list of reasons the New START treaty should not be ratified, provided by the Center for Security Policy:

• The treaty deals with only SOME of Russia’s nuclear threats and none of the world’s others, like China, North Korea, Iran and Venezuela.
• The Treaty imposes limits on missile defense, despite the Obama Administration’s insistence it does not.
• There is no claim that we need the Treaty urgently to monitor Russian compliance.  We should follow Ronald Reagan’s wise mantra, “trust but verify.”  Yet, Missouri Senator Kit Bond, the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has warned the treaty is not verifiable.  
• Requiring the three newly seated Senators to vote on the Treaty during the lame-duck session will not allow them enough time to thoroughly research the treaty in order to fulfill their Constitutional duty to advise and consent to treaties.
• The Treaty will be implemented on the watch of newly elected Senators.  Eleven of them have asked to have a say in its ratification.  Consideration should be deferred until they take office, new and more balanced hearings can be held and there is an opportunity for improvements to this accord.

Take Action

Call your Senators today and tell them you are counting on them to stop the dangerous new START Treaty.

Capitol Switchboard:  (202) 224-3121