Biden “30 x 30” plan gives feds unilateral power to confiscate land for “conservation”

Biden’s Conservation Plan Hints at Land Grab, Governors Warn

By Petr Svab for Epoch Times

LINCOLN, Neb.—Tucked away on page nine of one of President Joe Biden’s executive orders on climate change are two small paragraphs that have raised alarm among governors of more than a dozen states. The paragraphs task the administration to figure out a way “to achieve the goal of conserving at least 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030.”

While all sides seem to support taking care of nature, subjecting nearly a third of America to federal conservation rules is hardly what many state and local officials have in mind.

Pete Ricketts, governor of the heavily agricultural state of Nebraska, was among the first to raise questions about the plan.

The administration considers about 12 percent of American land and water to be currently in conservation. If that’s to become 30 percent, a chunk of land roughly the size of Nebraska would have to be added every year for nine years, Ricketts pointed out.

“What we’ve asked from the administration is for more information, because their math doesn’t work,” he said on June 24, announcing an executive order opposing the “30 x 30” plan.

“Either they’re going to fail to get to 30 percent, or they’re not telling us something else about how they’re going to get to 30 percent.”

His order bans the state government from supporting federal conservation programs without the governor’s express authorization, among other measures.

Ricketts and 14 other governors sent a letter to the administration in April with a request for more details on the plan. They pointed out that the federal government has no authority to unilaterally take land for conservation.

“We are deeply concerned about any effort to enlarge the federal estate or further restrict the use of public lands in our states,” they said.

Realization of the plan would be “infringing on the private property rights of our citizens and significantly harming our economies,” the letter says.

Ricketts said they haven’t heard back from the administration.

The White House and the U.S. Department of Agriculture didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Federal departments of interior, agriculture, and commerce as well as Biden’s Council on Environmental Quality put out a preliminary report in May that was supposed to outline how the “30 x 30” goal was to be achieved (pdf).

But the 24-page document still largely deals in generalities. Prominently, it fails to define what the administration means by “conservation.”

As Ricketts sees it, local landowners are already doing a good job taking care of the land.

“Farmers and ranchers were the original conservationists,” he said during a June 24 townhall in Pickrell, Nebraska.

The federal report acknowledges so too, saying “there is a strong stewardship ethic among America’s fishers, farmers, ranchers, forest owners, and other private landowners.”

But “if that’s the case … all agricultural land would be considered in conservation,” said Tanya Storer, one of the commissioners of Cherry County, Nebraska, during the townhall. “So that can’t be what they mean.”

The report suggests the “30 x 30” plan can be enacted without new laws, on a voluntary basis, while taking into consideration local input.

“Though President Biden’s national conservation goal is ambitious, it can be achieved using the wide array of existing tools and strategies,” it says.

For sure, the government already has an arsenal of conservation programs, some of them having already been in place for decades.

But if all those programs so far only achieved 12 percent conservation, how does the administration plan to push it to 30 in just 10 years, Ricketts asked.

“I don’t believe that the federal government is going to try to come out and just take land, through eminent domain, for example,” he said. “I believe the way they’re going to try and cover these goals is by creating more ways that they can regulate you and take your private property rights away.”

Read the full article here at Epoch Times