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Border land security bill scary stuff

by Vic Miller
| October 5, 2011 1:00 AM

 

The U.S. House of Representatives is

considering a dangerous bill that should have all of us in Montana

— and especially those of us in the northern tier — on high alert.

It’s called the National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act

(House Resolution 1505 if you want to look it up), and it gives the

federal government sweeping new power to shut down our public

lands.

The National Security and Federal Lands

Protection Act is exactly the kind of big government Montanans

don’t tolerate, and all of us should be up in arms over the very

prospect of this bill. It infringes on our constitutional rights in

the name of freedom — much like the controversial REAL ID Act. In

fact, this bill builds off of REAL ID. What exactly does the bill

do?

It gives the Department of Homeland

Security authority to seize immediate control of all public land,

undermining all rights we have on those lands. DHS could shut down

any recreational activities, grazing, hunting, fishing, logging

projects — you name it.

DHS would be allowed to do whatever it

wants to gain what it determines to be “operational control” of any

of our international borders. That means bureaucrats could build

roads, fences and even buildings wherever and whenever they want —

without public input or due process, even if it impacts private

land.

The bill waives 36 public land and

environmental laws on all federal, state and private lands “within

100 miles of the international land and maritime borders of the

United States.” If you look at a map of Montana, that’s the entire

top third of our state. It’s the entire Hi-Line, most of the

Missouri River and the Flathead Valley, all of Glacier National

Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness, several national forests and

five of the seven Indian nations in Montana.

The bill would give unprecedented power

to the secretary of Homeland Security. Under the bill, the

secretaries of Interior and Agriculture, who oversee forest service

and BLM lands, “shall not impede, prohibit or restrict activities

of the secretary of Homeland Security.”

And the bill exempts these activities

from court review. Now that’s what you call a federal land grab. No

wonder the lawmakers behind this bill are quietly trying to push it

through Congress.

If they get their way, the federal

government would have incredible power to stop timber sales on

forest service land. DHS could prevent us from snowmobiling or

fishing or hunting in our forests. DHS could prevent grazing on the

CMR Wildlife Refuge. Bureaucrats could kick all cattle off of BLM

land. It would be able to shut down Glacier National Park

indefinitely.

The Department of Homeland Security

would also have the right to ignore all tribal protections for

sacred sites. Why? The laws protecting these sites could be

ignored.

I’m not the only one concerned about

the National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act.

Constitutional scholar John Leshy says the act “is the most

breathtakingly extreme legislative proposal” he has ever seen

because “it would effectively arm 200,000 Department of Homeland

Security employees and their contractors with unilateral power to

do what they want, without any advance notice, check or process,

over vast areas of federal land.”

Scary stuff. What can you do? Contact

our representatives in Congress. Tell them we can’t afford H.R.

1505. As a Hi-Line county commissioner, I know full well that we

need to improve security on Montana’s northern border. But we must

do it without trampling our rights or taking away our freedoms.

That’s just not the Montana way.

Vic Miller is a county commissioner for

Blaine County.