Toward the Separation of Cult and State

Druidry (or Druidism?) has officially become a state-sanctioned religion in the U.K., opening the door, according to CNN, for a similar status change for Pagans, animists and other pantheist or polytheist religions. Traditionalists will decry the move, but I welcome it, as a potential step toward recognizing the only state-sanctioned religion in the United States -- environmentalism -- for what it really is.

Once we acknowledge the fact that environmentalism is a religion, which has wormed its way into government under a secular and "scientific" guise, we can begin fighting for the separation of cult and state.

Collateral Damage

Most media coverage of the public land wars follows a familiar but simplistic pattern. You have the malevolent force called "industry" on one side, poised to ruthlessly plunder the planet for private gain. Then you have the good guys, wearing green hats, who are just trying to "save" something "pristine" and "precious." Ignored in this sort of coverage are the Americans caught in the middle -- Westerners who appreciate (but don't necessarily worship) their natural surroundings, but would also like decent paying jobs, in something other than an ice cream scoop economy that caters to tourists.

I'm talking about unemployed timber workers in Oregon and Washington, living on welfare because America cares more about the Spotted owl than it cares about them. I'm talking about out-of-work commercial fishers in New England, California and Florida. I'm talking about ranchers and miners who've thrown in the towel, because government regulators are waging war on them. I'm talking about energy industry workers who aren't working, because anti-drilling zealots have derailed another domestic gas and oil project.

I'm talking about Jeremy and Amber Harrison of Vernal, Utah, who traveled all the way to Washington last week, for an appointment with an Interior Department official whose decisions can mean work or a welfare check for so many Westerners. They went carrying hand-written letters from folks back in Utah, who were left in the lurch when Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, immediately after confirmation, unilaterally canceled 77 drilling leases in the state, which he and a few green groups say pose a threat to national parks.

The Harrison's wanted to deliver a "human impact statement." But the official, Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes, snubbed them at the last minute -- reinforcing the message that arrogant Washingtonians are indifferent to the collateral damage their decisions inflict out here in fly-over country. Here's the story, as told by the Deseret News.

Stood-up Vernal couple still seek to tell oil-lease story in D.C.

They were there to talk about oil leases, but official canceled

When told they could meet with the Interior Department's No. 2 official, Jeremy and Amber Harrison pulled money out of their tight savings and with friends' help traveled to Washington, D.C., from Vernal, hoping to tell how canceling federal oil leases is hurting Vernal.
But after they arrived, an aide to Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes called and canceled the meeting that had been scheduled in the office of Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah. They were told no other time was available with Hayes, but an alternate official could maybe meet with them sometime.

"This is not the way people ought to be treated," said an upset Bishop. He said his office had verified the meeting last week, but it was canceled at the last minute. "It is unfortunate. I mean these guys came back on their own dime to try and meet with Hayes."

It comes as the House Natural Resources Committee is beginning two days of hearings Wednesday on how to meet America's energy needs while protecting the environment, as administration officials, environmental groups, sportsmen, landowners and others are scheduled to testify.

Amid that, the Harrisons had sought Bishop's help to meet with Hayes and bring 150 or so letters from Vernal residents about how the administration's cancellation of oil leases there is hurting them. "It's going to be like a human impact statement," Bishop said, noting he will enter all of those letters into the record at the hearing.

"We need Americans at work, not foreigners" selling foreign oil to America, Jeremy Harrison said. He and his wife want to tell how unemployment has gone from about 1 percent around Vernal to 8.5 percent, which they blame largely on administration actions making it harder to drill for oil.

Amber Harrison said she and her husband own a small business to truck crude oil. "Our income has gone down drastically. We were on the verge of losing a few items, but we were able to pull things out," she said.

"But a lot of people around us have lost entire homes and cars and are wondering if they can feed their families," she said. "Many people have had to move away because they cannot find a job." Amber Harrison said she and her husband attended a "tea party" protest in April, and began talking with others about the need for a group to counter what they feel are misleading claims by environmental groups.

She said they formed a citizens group called Grassroots Alliance for Public Lands. "It was our response to the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance," she said, and it started looking for ways to get out the story of the economic impacts of actions that make drilling harder.

When Hayes traveled to Vernal earlier this year for a hearing on canceled oil leases, the Harrisons and other members of their grass-roots alliance were there.

"I did get up and speak with David Hayes and I presented him with an 'I Love Drilling' T-shirt signed by people in Vernal. We were hopeful that because of comments he had made directly to me, that he would be willing to meet with us. Unfortunately, the willingness just isn't there," Amber Harrison said.

The Harrisons are meeting, however, with all members of the Utah delegation and with the Western Caucus of the House to tell stories of people in Vernal. They will also attend the hearings on energy, and Bishop has promised to ask some questions on their behalf while also presenting their letters.

One letter is from 9-year-old Heather Mendoza. It says that before her grandfather was laid off from his oil industry job, they lived in a home where she had a horse and a dog.
"We sold my horse because we could not afford to keep her. Where we moved in Vernal, we had to get rid of my dog as well," Mendoza wrote. "The only thing I ask is please let my grandpa go back to work so we can at least stay in Vernal."

In another letter, Kathleen Fladeland wrote that her husband has been out of work since February, after working in the oil industry for 40 years. "I am working a part-time job, but it does not cover even a quarter of our bills," adding they will "soon be in foreclosure if he can't find a decent job."

In another letter, Julie Curry wrote how even her car wash for large trucks in Vernal has been hurt by canceling oil leases, so truckers have fewer jobs and less need of her service.
"Our business has experienced a 67 percent decrease," she wrote, adding that it went from having nine employees earlier this year to now having just two.

Jeremy Harrison said of such letters, "Stuff like this should not be happening in America."
He added that while environmental groups argue that canceling oil leases could help tourism in Vernal by making areas more pristine, "tourism may help a bit in summer. But the oil fields are what keeps the area going all year long."
e-mail: lee@desnews.com"

Several days later, at a congressional hearing, Secretary Salazar was asked by Rep. Bishop what response he had for people like the Harrisons. "Look at what is happening to real people on the ground as a result of decisions the Department of Interior has made in my home state of Utah," Bishop said. But the insufferably smug Salazar would not take responsibility, shifting that (as all Obama administration officials do) to the previous administration, which he says rushed the leases through.

"Salazar . . .said the Obama administration should not be blamed for economic problems in Utah oil country related to rescinding the auction, but the Bush administration should be for rushing the auction without fully consulting the National Park Service. "What happened with those 77 parcels … is that there was simply not the consultation that should have taken place there between the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service," Salazar told the House Natural Resources Committee. "Because that consultation did not take place, there was a need to review that to ensure that the other legal interests of the United States of America were being protected," he said . . .

. . . . Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, complained that Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes had canceled a meeting with Jeremy and Amber Harrison of Vernal who brought 150 letters from neighbors to describe economic distress from the canceled auction — after they spent their own money to travel to Washington on the promise of meeting him Tuesday.

"I'd be happy to take whatever documents they have," Salazar said, but said economic problems in the Uintah Basin should be blamed more on rushing a bad auction than on him for trying to fix it. "Sometimes what ends up happening is when the government does things in a rushed and wrong way, you end up having consequences to human beings like the Harrisons that you don't have when you do it the right way," Salazar said."

The oil and gas industry vigorously denies the process was shortcut. The Independent Petroleum Association of the Mountain States has produced a point-by-point rebuttal to these claims. An independent panel reinstated a number of the canceled leases, raising more doubts about the legitimacy of Salazar's actions. But the Interior secretary defending his abuses of power, arguing that he had the authority to unilaterally cancel leases "near" national parks.

"Many of those lease parcels are in fact going forward," Salazar said. "But the fact is I don't believe we should drill everywhere because not everyplace is appropriate for us to drill. We shouldn't be drilling near Arches National Park and Canyonlands and Dinosaur. Those are important treasures that we need to protect."

"Near" and "close" are relative terms in the sprawling West. What's "near" here would be "far" back East. Is a drilling rig 20 or 30 or 40 miles away from a national park boundary line really too close? Salazar and others are trying to make that claim (using what I call the "proximity ploy").

But since when did a single individual's subjective judgments become the basis for making such momentous decisions? And how many millions of acres of public lands are we removing from potentially productive uses when we draw such arbitrary and subjective buffer zones around parks? Given the prevalence of parks across the West -- just look at a map of southern Utah --isn't this a rationale for locking away a huge new swath of public lands?

That's exactly what it is.

Rep. Bishop is asking hard questions about whether Salazar's Interior Department colluded with outside groups on the issue. He pressed Salazar on this at the hearing:

"Bishop also complained that the department has not provided documents he has requested that he says may show it has a too cozy relationship with environmental groups that oppose oil drilling in Utah. "Your department has been foot-dragging, stonewalling and the only thing we have received is the apparently false claim that there are only seven communications," Bishop said. Salazar said, "We have thousands of pages, frankly, that have been sent over (or) are being sent over. … You've gotten a lot of those documents. You're getting a lot more."

Whether or not collusion can be documented, is there any doubt that Salazar and the Obama administration are water-carriers for the radical green groups that helped put them in power? No doubt, in my opinion. It's evident not just in the policies they're adopting, but in their arrogant indifference to the human casualties, and collateral damage to the American economy, these policies leave in their wake.

The Harrisons of Vernal Utah are just the tip of the iceberg.

Animal Crackers

The Endangered Species Act to most Americans is just a law they've heard about, which might even give them a warm and fuzzy tickle deep inside. To many Westerners it's synonymous with tyranny -- an all-powerful presence that licenses the federal government to trample property rights, destroy jobs, obstruct energy development and restrict access to supposedly "public" lands, all to "protect" a subsegment of a subspecies that some graduate student says is rare.

It's the law that eco-Luddites use to dictate public lands policies and thwart any sort of development or economic activity they find objectionable. Discover a new natural gas field in the Rocky Mountain region and in no time flat, almost miraculously, a host of rare plants or animals -- all in dire need of protection -- will be discovered there. It's the silver bullet that can stop any infrastructure project: any roadway, dam, reservoir, power plant, pipeline. Even some "clean energy" projects -- the only kinds of energy projects eco-Luddites embrace -- are being stymied by the ESA. All you need to do is identify something allegedly rare living or growing in the targeted project's vicinity and -- voilà! -- you have a reason to say "no."

So whenever most Westerners read about the latest list of species, subspecies, or "distinct population segments" proposed for ESA protections, they greet the news with dread, not delight. It only evokes glee among federal biocrats (biologist-bureaucrats), who will see their power and budgets enhanced when the listings (and the regulatory controls that come with them) take place, and among eco-Luddites and their lawyers, who will use the listings to destroy jobs, drive up energy costs and thwart progress.

"Twenty-nine species in more than 20 states -- from a rare beach-dwelling plant in Yellowstone National Park to a caddis fly in Nebraska -- may need federal protections to avoid extinction, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service," reports the Associated Press. "Fourteen of the 29 species appear in Utah, including 10 plant species and a small silvery minnow called the Northern leatherside chub. The agency said Tuesday that 20 plants, six snails, two insects and a fish may warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act."

This stems from a 2007 listing petition made by WildEarth Guardians, which proposed more than 200 new species for protection, most of them in the West. The Fish and Wildlife Service rejected 165 of the candidates and delayed a decision on 38. But the listing of even 29 new species could have profound impacts on Westerners -- and on non-Westerners who get their energy from Western sources -- depending on where the species are found.

Here are the species that made the cut (each of which is of course critical to the survival of the planet):

PLANTS
Yellowstone Sand Verbena in Wyoming
Ross' bentgrass in Wyoming
Hamilton milkvetch in Colorado and Utah
Isely milkvetch in Utah
Skiff milkvetch in Colorado
Precocious milkvetch in Wyoming
Cisco milkvetch in Utah
Schmoll milkvetch in Colorado
Fremont County rockcress in Wyoming
Boat-shaped bugseed in Colorado
Pine springs cryptantha in Arizona, Utah
Weber whitlowgrass in Colorado
Brandegee's wild buckwheat in Colorado
Frisco buckwheat in Utah
Ostler's peppergrass in Utah
Lesquerella navajoensis in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah
Flowers pentemon in Utah
Gibben's beardtongue in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming
Pale blue-eyed grass in North Dakota, Oregon, Washington
Frisco clover in Utah

MOLLUSKS
Frigid ambersnail in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin
Bearmouth mountainsnail in Montana
Byrne Resort mountainsnail in Montana
Longitudinal gland pyrg in Nevada, Utah
Hamlin Valley pyrg in Utah
Sub-globose snake pyrg in Utah

INSECTS
Platte River caddis fly in Nebraska
Meltwater lednian stonefly in Montana

FISH
Northern leatherside chub in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming

That you've never heard of these plants and animals is irrelevant. That they may seem laughably insignificant, or may seem related to one another (like the 5 or 6 types of milkvetch included), and that their names may sound funny -- none of this matters under the ESA. That some of these aren't actually species, but subspecies of subspecies, also doesn't matter. Such judgments must be left to myopic federal biocrats, who can't see the implications of anything beyond what's on the microscope, and for whom cost-benefit analysis is an alien concept.

All creatures are created equal in the eyes of the ESA, meaning the Meltwater lednian stonefly is as worthy of protection as the bald eagle or a grizzly bear, no matter the cost to taxpayers, no matter the consequences for land owners. It's arrogant species-centrism to argue that some animals are more worthy of federal protection than others. Noah didn't discriminate; we can't either.

This is the insanity of an environmental law run wild. Yet few in Washington have the courage to admit that it's gotten completely out of control, lest they face the wrath of the Environmental Anxiety Industry. And non-Westerners in Congress have little reason to call for ESA reform, since the law's costs and consequences weigh relatively lightly (at least for now) on their constituents.

Past administrations have tried to slow the listing process down a bit, arguing that USFWS was financially and logistically swamped by the species-related work already on its plate. Much of what the agency should be spending on protection it instead spends on lawyers, to deal with the dozens of ESA-related lawsuits going at any one time. But it's doubtful the Obama administration will show any similar restraint when it comes to listing decisions, given the strong political ties it has to Gang Green.

Budget limitations aren't a reason for the agency not to act under this president. Bureaucratic inertia is the only hope Westerners have of slowing the regulatory deluge that threatens. This is one case in which federal red tape, "analysis paralysis" and the natural lethargy of the leviathan might actually be a blessing.

Ferreting out Trouble

On the one hand, one has to wish the black-footed ferrets well that are being released into the wild on Fort Carson, in an innovative collaboration between the base, the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They're such cute little buggers. No one wants to see them go extinct.

But the success of the reintroduction program could become a nightmare for property owners, ranchers, local governments and the state of Colorado as a whole, if these ferret populations flourish and migrate beyond the base, given the regulatory controls and property rights violations that follow endangered species wherever they go. If the test colony survives on Fort Carson, the plan is to replicate the experiment elsewhere. "If successful, the release could be a blueprint for other locations on the Front Range and eastern plains," reports The Gazette. And once those populations are established, they'll need to be protected by a "critical habitat" designation and a host of land control regulations that come with it.

Such is the nature of the Endangered Species Act. And this will have profound implications for everyone living, and working the land, along the Front Range.

Colorado got sucked into a similar situation in the case of the Canada lynx. The state agreed years ago to host a reintroduction effort, which is ongoing, with the condition that the feds wouldn't bring the full weight of the ESA down on our heads if it worked. But once the cats, which had been erased from the state, were back, the rules of the game changed. The fact that Canada lynx are back in the state now becomes a factor in almost every U.S. Forest Service decision. Those wanting to block expansion of the ski area at Wolf Creek, for instance, or to dictate a host of other public lands decisions, can and will use the lynx as a pawn in that effort. Check out this story in today's Vail Daily. And one can predict a similar scenario unfolding in the case of the ferrets.

How might a growing population impact training at Fort Carson? What will it do to ranching on the eastern plains? How will it impact local land use rules along the fast-growing Front Range? All these issues need to be thought out and debated in advance, but they aren't. I follow these issues closely and this is the first I've heard of the black-footed ferret recolonization plan. It seems to have been hatched quietly, by a handful of government insiders. But the potential wider implications haven't been debated, and can't be well understood, by Coloradans as a whole.
Perhaps Fort Carson officials and folks at U.S. Fish and Wildlife have penned a memorandum of understanding -- at least I would hope they have -- ensuring that training can continue as usual, even if the base is crawling with ferrets. But what assurances do the rest of us have that doing the right thing now won't come back to haunt us in the future? None whatsoever.

And even if someone gave us such assurances, what faith could we have that they would be fulfilled, given that any such agreement could be taken to court and overturned by a judge, at the behest of the unreasonable people who use the ESA as a tool to curtail development, block water and energy projects, bludgeon property owners, etc.? Such guarantees aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

So while we should wish this experimental little colony of black-footed ferrets well, we should also monitor this effort closely, and with concern, given that no good deed goes unpunished under the ESA.

The Green Shirts are Coming, the Green Shirts are Coming

Every successful totalitarian movement makes a play for the youngsters. The Nazis, as we all know, had the Hitler Youth, or Brown Shirts. The Soviets had the "Young Pioneers," which Vladimir Putin is reinventing as "Nashi." Cambodia's Khmer Rouge turned kids into eager little executioners in the killing fields.

Something nearly as sinister is occurring in contemporary America, as the next great totalitarian movement, environmentalism, is using our schools and popular culture to indoctrinate and recruit young converts. For now, these Green Shirts-in-the-making are content to lecture and shame their elders about our environmentally-incorrect ways, as this disturbing New York Times story indicates. But how far off can command-and-control coercion and outright persecution of "Earth enemies" be, once the eco-youth grow up to be Nature Nazis, with their hands firmly on the levers of power?

Yet American parents -- many of whom would have a fit if their kids began dragging home the dogmas of any other religion -- seem to find this form of programming and indoctrination cute, rather than menacing. They feel guilty, instead of alarmed.

The Times:

“I have very, very environmentally conscious children — more so than me, I’m embarrassed to say,” said Ms. Ross, a social worker in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. “They’re on my case about getting a hybrid car. They want me to replace all the light bulbs in the house with energy-saving bulbs.”

Ms. Ross’s children are part of what experts say is a growing army of “eco-kids” — steeped in environmentalism at school, in houses of worship, through scouting and even via popular culture — who try to hold their parents accountable at home. Amid their pride in their children’s zeal for all things green, the grown-ups sometimes end up feeling like scofflaws under the watchful eye of the pint-size eco-police, whose demands grow ever greater, and more expensive. They pore over garbage bins in search of errant recyclables. They lobby for solar panels. And, in a generational about-face, they turn off the lights after their parents leave empty rooms.

“Kids have really turned into the little conscience sitting in the back seat,” said Julia Bovey, a spokeswoman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leading environmental group that recently worked with Nickelodeon on a series of public service announcements and other programming called “Big Green Help.”

“One of the fascinating things about children is that they don’t separate what you are doing from what you should be doing,” Ms. Bovey said. “Here’s this information about how we can help the environment, and kids are not able to rationalize it away the way that adults do.”

Another fascinating thing about children is that they are infinitely malleable and the ultimate idealists, making them easy prey for fanatics and propagandists. They're also, by and large, economic illiterates, oblivious to what things cost, where things come from and the necessity of making trade-offs. They take their affluence and material comforts completely for granted, and are willing to vilify the institutions and individuals that make both possible. They are disconnected from reality and still believe in magic -- all qualities they share with "eco-adults."

Today's "pint-size eco-police," as The Times calls them, are tomorrow's green gestapo. Today's "little conscience" in the back seat will become tomorrow's "sustainability" commissar, once behind the wheel. Perhaps the green menace is less menacing to some Americans because it marches under the seemingly benevolent banner of "saving the Planet." But every totalitarian movement is animated by such grandiose and messianic goals. "The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes," warned Thomas Paine.

And what more noble cause can there be than "saving the planet?"

Cheney's Energy Task Force: a nostalgic look back

I hate to repeat myself, but in this case I can't resist reaching into the wayback file for a column I wrote for The Colorado Springs Gazette in September 2005. It still stands as a potent critique of the politicians and interest groups that peremptorily (and gleefully) hammered nails in the coffin of Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force recommendations back in 2001. Politics, and nothing but politics, prevented these remarkably sensible proposals from seeing the light of day. Had Cheney been granted a fair hearing, and had his quite balanced and forward-thinking recommendations been implemented then, we might be in far less trouble today.

But will there be a public reckoning for, or apology from, the short-sighted obstructionists who, by summarily trashing the task force's work, helped create the crisis we're in today? Not as long as we remain The United States of Amnesia.

Here's the 2005 column.