by Jim Beers
There is something of great importance emerging from the Northern and
Southern Rocky Mountain states today that all Americans need to keep an eye
on. The past thirty years have seen the passage of increasingly harsh and
harmful Federal environmental laws and regulations. This has led to Federal
agencies closing Federal lands and declaring rights for plants and animals
that supercede the rights of citizens to their property and their traditions
and cultures. This has decimated rural economies, rural communities, and the
ranches, farms, and activities that have made Americans the envy of the
world.
Nowhere have these harms to citizens from Federal laws been as numerous or
egregious as in the West. Because of large Federal land ownerships the
impacts of wolves, bull trout, Jumping Mice, blind fish, and Wilderness and
Roadless designations plus Critical Habitats, land acquisitions, and
easement offers to stressed landowners have exceeded the damage to date in
the East or South or Midwest. However, anyone that has been keeping track of
these things knows that just as the harms have accumulated in the West, so
too will they (only at a slower pace) in the rest of the country.
Because they are at the forefront of these harms, westerners have been
forced to try and protect their interests and rights. The alternatives are
to lose those rights such as use of their own property, or access to public
property that goes unmanaged more every year, to even being able to access
their own property by road. What have they found?
They have found an increasingly autocratic Federal bureaucracy that not only
disdains their protests but is also is staffed with Federal employees
committed to depopulating rural areas so as to place them entirely under
Federal controls. They have found State bureaucracies that they believed
worked for them but that really work with Federal counterparts to preserve
Federal funding, get new Federal funding, and ultimately share in the new
authorities being transferred from States to Federal agencies. They have
found Federal politicians with ironclad tenure that pander to far away urban
coalitions, environmental extremists, and animal rights radicals that
provide financial support and publicity. Finally, they have found State
politicians that have grown meek and timid before Federal demands tied to
Federal dollars. What have they done?
Westerners in Arizona and New Mexico as well as in Montana, Idaho, and
Wyoming are taking the Federal government to Court. In some States like
Wyoming, the State government is boldly stepping forth. In others like
Idaho, individuals are recognizing that State bureaucracies need to be
brought back under the control of State government. But the big development
is the movement for individuals and groups like the Friends of the Northern
Yellowstone Elk Herd to sue the Federal government. Before you go, “heck,
that’s a waste of time,” there is a new wrinkle: they are enlisting
local (County) government support in their lawsuits. This gives them
increased “standing” in Court.
In Arizona and New Mexico Counties have formed a coalition that even CROSSES
STATE LINES to band together to address the increasing harm of Federal
bureaucrats wielding environmental and animal rights mandates that harm
Counties, ranches, rural communities, and the County tax base among other
things. When governments sue government, the likelihood of positive results
is greatly enhanced. I’d go so far as to predict that this movement will,
as it goes forward, jar State governments and State bureaucracies back to a
realization of their Constitutional responsibility to protect their
citizens, their environment, and their way of life from all invaders be they
a fish from China or a Federal bureaucrat from Washington, DC. Westwatching
should be a very enlightening activity for all Americans in the future.
26 August 2004
Jim Beers (Retired Wildlife Biologist, US Fish & Wildlife Service)
