More Land Declared Off-Limits to People

The Basic Issue

The (misnamed) Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA) is a huge Northwest American land grab. It is being pushed through Congress as HR 980. This bill proposes that 24 million MORE acres of land (about 38,000 square miles) in five northwestern states be given over to the Wildland’s Project which will ultimately mean that human presence on the land is drastically reduced.

Currently, many use the land’s resources for jobs and recreation. Also of great importance is that this land grab includes private property. For example:

HR 980 lists Skitwish Ridge as an “inventoried roadless area in the Panhandle National Forest.” That’s about 12 miles from my home in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The roadless claim is made by RoadLessLand.org. (At the map link, select ‘Satellite’ view and use + to show the roads under their overlay.) It’s not roadless, in fact here’s a home for sale there and other area information. If you Google map Skitwish Ridge, (Click on Skitwish Ridge, Kootenai, ID 83814, then select ‘Satellite’ view and use – to show roads.) you’ll see miles of roads including Interstate 90! We, who live here, use those roads for recreation and jobs.

Here’s a map of U.S. Roadless areas. Note the inequitable distribution—especially within the five states from which this bill steals another 24 million acres.

Who leads this ripoff? Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York who represents Manhattan. She’s been at this since 1993 and introduced this bill again. See the map here and tell me what a New York Representative is doing?

Here’s the representation on the committee: 21 Democrats, 14 Republicans. Of the five states targeted only three have representation on the committee. Washington is represented by one Democrat and one Republican, Oregon is represented by two Democrats and Wyoming represented by one Republican.

Here’s the amount of land they want to take per state: Oregon, 1,087,00 acres; Washington, 754,800 acres, Wyoming, 3,266,000 acres; Idaho, 9,800,000 acres; Montana, 8,256,000 acres.

HR 980 includes these details:

·        The plan forbids development of public land in the five states by removing over 6,000 miles of existing roads.

·        The plan supposedly creates about 2,300 jobs for a “sustainable economic” base (which really means government related
          and controlled jobs). In Idaho alone there are 20,000 existing jobs that will be lost in logging and more in recreation,
          hunting, mining, etc… These jobs have been genuinely sustained since 1900.

Here’s why you should care: This is happening in myriad ways across the United States. Look at the Wildland’s Map created by Dr. Michael Coffman below to locate where you live and identify if you are in a red wildland’s highly regulated area, a yellow buffer zone or a “smart growth” black spot.

Want to be heard before it’s too late? Subcommittee hearings were held on May 5th, and the bill has been referred to three committees. Please take the time to learn of the full impact and text of this bill. Here’s a site that contains this information. Here is a link to the page that explains what action you should take to stop HR 980.

When land is stolen so is our freedom. That’s why Freedom Advocates promotes the concept of fighting battles on principle and unalienable rights. There is no time like now!

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