Dangerous Time In Congress Next 30 Days Until August 8th Recess

• Congress Often Rushes Bad Legislation While You Are Busy With Summer and Vacation Activities.
• Your Congressman and both Senators may be home at times during the next month and later and will likely be home after August 8th for the month long Congressional August Recess.
• You must make sure you call, fax and e-mail your Congressman and both Senators to get their July to September schedules for when they will be in your area. It is critical that you follow the directions below. Your private property rights are severely threatened.
• During the month of July up to approximately August 8th both the House and Senate are expected squeeze in a lot of votes including votes on a number of land grab bills that threaten you. They rush to get bills out before the recess that would come approximately August 8th.

During this time the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee could vote on HR 2421, the Clean Water Restoration Act (Wetlands Corps of Engineers and EPA Land Grab) and it could move swiftly to the full House for a vote.

• HR 2421 is the Democrat effort to overturn the Rapanos (2006) and Swancc (2001) Supreme Court Wetlands Decisions favorable to private property owners and seize control of all US watersheds.

HR 2421 would give control over Wetlands and other lands back to the Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and make their jurisdiction the same as it was before the Supreme Court limited their jurisdiction.

• That means national land use controls. It will give the Corps of Engineers and EPA control over your property. The Senate will likely vote before August on S 3213 (new Omnibus Lands Bill just introduced), the giant new Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2008.

S 3213 includes the dreaded BLM National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS), numerous new Wilderness areas, Heritage Areas and many other Federal lands and parks bills put together as one giant omnibus bill.

Think of it as the Omnibus Federal lands, BLM NLCS and Wilderness Bill, S 3213 or just Senate Omnibus Lands Bill. This Omnibus bill includes over 90 bills you have not likely seen.

The NLCS was created Administratively in 2000 by former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. The NLCS has lain low for eight years until they could get Congress to pass it and make it permanent.

The NLCS will lay a preservationist National Park type regulatory overlay over 26,000,000 acres of BLM land including many National Monuments, Wild and Scenic Rivers, Wilderness Study Areas and much more. It threatens access and use by ranchers, miners, forestry advocates, recreationists and many other Federal land users.

These votes will come while you are busy on vacation or distracted by summer activities. There will be so many bills rushed to a vote that many Members of the House and Senate will not have time to even read them.

That means your friends in the House and Senate that you count on to keep an eye open to protect you could easily allow bills to pass that would threaten you and not be aware of it or have a bill of their own in the Omnibus Bill and not want to touch it. So they look the other way as bad bills pass. You need to insist that your Senators and Representatives read each bill they vote on and protect you.

I cannot stress too strongly how critical your calls, faxes and e-mails are to your Congressman and both Senators during the coming four weeks opposing the Senate Omnibus Lands Bill (S 3213) and HR 2421, the Wetlands Corps of Engineers EPA land grab in the House.

You are facing an unbelievable threat that only you can defeat. A Russian General once said, "Quantity has a quality all its own."

Your calls, e-mails, faxes and other contacts to your Senators and Representatives can really make a difference now. If your legislators get enough calls, they are so busy they are likely to put the threatening bills away until they have more time to think about them. That also gives you more time to fight them.

Action Items

1. Please forward this message to as many people as possible. Your entire list if you can. This is really important.
2. You must call, fax or e-mail your Congressional Representative at (202) 225-3121 to ask for his or her schedule for July to September when he or she will be back in your district.
• The Congressional August recess begins approximately August 8th and runs until just after Labor Day. These dates are often changed in the flurry of activity before Congress goes home. Do not use US Mail. Because of the Anthrax mail inspections, regular letters can take three weeks to three months to get delivered to Congress.
• Try to make plans to meet with your Representative when he comes home or attend one of his meetings. Get two or three friends to join you. Try to represent and organization if you can but it is not necessary. It might increase your chances of getting a meeting. This is an election year so your Congressional Reps. will be paying attention.
• Be sure to take this e-mail with you when you go to a meeting being held by your Congressman. Put him or her on the spot about how they are going to vote on HR 2421. Get a commitment to oppose the huge Wetlands land grab.
• Make sure you tell your Representative that you oppose the giant Wetlands Corps of Engineers EPA Watershed Land Grab Bill, HR 2421 (The official name is the Clean Water Restoration Act).
• Ask for a written confirmation or reply to your phone call from the staff person when you call. You should also ask for the e-mail and fax number of the staff person who handles Wetlands and keep that information for future reference. Send e-mail too.
3. Call, fax or e-mail both your Senators and ask for their schedule for July to September back in your state. Make sure you ask for the staff person who handles Federal land issues, BLM, Wilderness and Park issues. All Senators may be called at (202) 224-3121.
• Make it clear that you oppose the new Omnibus Federal Lands Bill (S 3213) including the 26,000,000 acre BLM NLCS and all the new Wilderness areas. Again, ask for the e-mail and fax address of the staff person and be sure to send a letter faxed or e-mailed to both your Senators at that address opposing S 3213.
• Oppose Every Omnibus Bill:
• Everyone should oppose this new way the Senate is passing bills by packaging them into huge omnibus bills where so many Senators have a piece of the action that nobody looks closely at many of the other provisions. It also helps each Senator being held accountable for his or her vote on a particular issue. Tell them you want votes on each individual bill and they should promise to read each bill.
• Ask for a commitment to oppose using the Omnibus Bill approach to passing a massive number of bills together.
• When you go to one of their meetings when they are in the state, make sure to take a copy of this e-mail and confront them on how they voted on S 3213, the Omnibus Federal Lands bill. If they have not voted yet, get a commitment to oppose this giant Omnibus Federal lands bill, S 3213.
4. Forward a copy of this message to your friends, neighbors and business associates. Everyone on your list. Ask them to commit to calling also.

Stop HR 2421, The Clean Water Restoration Act. HR 2421 is really a massive Federal land and watershed power grab. It must be stopped. It will use "wetlands," the Corps of Engineers and EPA to take control over every farm, ranch, and piece of private property with any water on it or even if you only engage in activities that might affect water.

HR 2421 expands the authority of the Federal government under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 (Clean Water Act) to include all waters of the U.S. and activities affecting these waters.

It removes the requirement that the Corps and EPA only have jurisdiction over "Navigable Waters."

It will give the Corps of Engineers and EPA control over your land. You'll get tied up in a nightmare of red tape and bureaucracy.

Help stop the Senate Omnibus Land Bill, S 3213 that is the giant new Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2008. It includes the BLM National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS), new Wilderness areas, Heritage Areas, all BLM National Monuments and many other Federal lands and parks bills.

The following bulletin from Federal Parks & Recreation newsletter reports on the giant new Federal Lands Omnibus Bill in the Senate.

From Parks and Recreation Newsletter:

New Omnibus Bill Bigger Than Last One, It Includes NLCS

90-Bill Omnibus Measure Contains NLCS, 10 Heritage Areas and More

Here Are Some Of The Omnibus Bill (S3213) Specifics:

The Senate Energy Committee, having succeeded in pushing a big omnibus bill through Congress in April, is trying again.

The old bill (PL 110-229 of May 8) included only individual measures approved by both the committee and the House, about 50 in total.

This time committee chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) has assembled a bill (S 3213) that includes more than 90 individual bills the committee has approved, whether the House has acted or not.

There are controversies. Included in the package is legislation (S 1139) to certify the 26 million-acre National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM.) The Senate Energy Committee approved S 1139 May 23, 2007, but the bill has not moved since. The House approved a counterpart NLCS bill (HR 2016) April 9 by a 278-to-140 vote.

Western Republicans opposed the House NLCS bill. Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said the bill not only failed to address existing problems in multiple use management of BLM lands in the system, but also could hamper management. He cited such ongoing problems as lack of access for energy development, grazing and other activities. Bishop said the bill could impose Park Service-like restrictions on BLM.

Besides, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has said she will attempt to expand the system to 32 million acres from 26,000,000 by adding the entire California Desert Conservation Area (CDCA) to the NLCS.

Some four million acres of the CDCA are already in the system but Feinstein would add another six million acres.

Beyond the NLCS, S 3213 includes individual bills that would:

• Designate two new National Park System units: Paterson National Historical Park in New Jersey and Thomas Edison National Historical Park in New Jersey,
• Authorize additions to nine existing National Park System units,
• Designate ten new national heritage areas (NHAs) and authorize studies of two NHAs. The new NHAs would be: Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area, Colorado; Cache La Poudre River National Heritage Area, Colorado; South Park National Heritage Area, Colorado; Northern Plains National Heritage Area, North Dakota; Baltimore National Heritage Area, Maryland; Freedom's Way National Heritage Area, Massachusetts and N.H.; Mississippi Hills National Heritage Area; Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area; Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area, Alabama; and Santa Cruz Valley National Heritage Area, Arizona,
• Designate four national trails: Arizona National Scenic Trail; New England National Scenic Trail; Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail; and Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail,
• Authorize studies of additions to four National Historic Trails: Oregon National Historic Trail; Pony Express National Historic Trail; California National Historic Trail; And The Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail,
• Add three wild and scenic rivers: Fossil Creek, Arizona; Snake River Headwaters, Wyoming; and Taunton River, Massachusetts, and
• Designate a Snowy River Cave National Conservation Area of about 3.5 miles of cave passages in Lincoln County, New Mexico.

The Senate Energy Committee said June 27 that the bill runs 759 pages long and includes measures sponsored by Democrats, Republicans and both parties.

The committee puts together the omnibus bills because Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) routinely places holds on individual bills, preventing them from being considered on the Senate floor. When assembled in one omnibus bill, the individual measures create a critical mass and sponsors can obtain the 60 votes needed to break Coburn's holds. Coburn has objected to any legislation that would come with a price tag and require additional federal spending.

But these giant Omnibus Bills are killing you.

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Federal Parks & Recreation is published by Resources Publishing Co., P.O. Box 41320, Arlington, VA 22204. EIN 52-1363538. Phone (703) 553-0552. FAX (703) 553-0558. E-mail james@resourcespublishing.com. Website: www.plnfpr.com.