http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29707

By Sarah Foster

"Literally minutes before adjourning for the year, the House of Representatives without debate unanimously approved a $261 million-a-year legislative grab bag of goodies for environmentalists and their allies in government, and sent it to the Senate for final approval.

Co-authored by Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Bob Smith, R-N.H., The American Wildlife Enhancement Act ? S 990 ? provides the wherewithal for massive land acquisition by state government agencies and non-profit groups, boosts the powers and status of the environmental organizations, and enacts a major amendment to the 1973 Endangered Species Act by adding a new designation ? "species at risk" ? to the familiar "threatened" and "endangered" categories. The establishment and expansion of several national wildlife refuges and a five-year rodent control program are thrown in for good measure.

The congressman responsible for its passage by the House last week was Rep. James Hansen, R-Utah. Although Hansen headed the House Resources Committee, to which the bill was assigned after it passed the Senate in December, he held no hearings on it. Instead, he kept it on a back shelf until 2:22 a.m. Friday, when he asked that the Resources Committee be discharged from further consideration of the bill and that it be placed on the calendar for a vote. Three minutes later ? with major sections stripped from it ? S 990 was on its way to the Senate.

The same tactic was used for 14 other bills submitted for last-minute approval. Each was labeled non-controversial, placed on the consent calendar, voted upon, and sent to the Senate.

This was essentially a rerun of the bill's passage by the Senate. On the evening of Dec. 22, at the end of one of the longest legislative years in decades, and with a mere handful of senators still present, Reid called for "unanimous consent" to pass S 990. The bill passed.

"Who voted for and against the bill? No one will ever know. Was there even a quorum present? No one will ever know," wrote Henry Lamb, in an article in WorldNetDaily.

Lamb suggested that the bill would be better named the "Screw-the-Landowner Act of 2001," and observed: "It is one of several proposals to provide tax dollars and authorization to convert even more of the rapidly diminishing private property in America to government inventories. The bill provides $600 million per year for five years for the 'acquisition of an area of land or water that is suitable or capable of being made suitable for feeding, resting or breeding by wildlife.' With this broad purpose, no land anywhere is safe from condemnation and acquisition by an agency of government."

"Apparently, the U.S. Senate will use our tax dollars to buy pig swill if it is sold in a green bucket," Lamb added.

And, apparently, so will the House of Representatives.

Hansen's move in the dead of night caught S 990's opponents off-guard, but they moved quickly to try and derail it in the Upper House. Faxes and e-mails have been flying through the phone lines and across the Internet, urging property-rights activists and the public to contact their senators and demand that a hold be placed on the bill.

Under the Senate's unanimous consent rules, if one member objects to a bill it must be removed from the consent calendar, and cannot be considered until next year. A vote could come as early as today. The Senate is scheduled to adjourn Thursday.

The American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the National Water Resources Association (the Western irrigators) have weighed in opposition, joining the American Land Rights Association, a grassroots group based in Battle Ground, Wash., which has been actively fighting the bill from its inception, along with its earlier variants.

Lobbyist Mike Hardiman, who represents ALRA on Capitol Hill, views S 990 as "the most dangerous property rights bill this session" ? and not only because of its land-acquisition provisions. In fact, as approved by the House, the sections that would have allocated some $350 million a year for the Pittman-Robertson Fund were eliminated. The Pittman-Robertson Fund is a long-established, dedicated fund, supported with a tax on purchases for sporting equipment: guns, ammunition, archery equipment and other outdoor supplies.

This was to be augmented by the $350 million per year, the largest allocation in the bill. It was inexplicably removed by Hansen, who requested and was given permission to amend the bill that had been voted upon by the Senate. Hansen not only removed the funding provision, the entire section dealing with amendments to Pittman-Robertson was deleted, and several new sections were added.

The cost of the bill went from $3 billion over five years, to $1.3 billion ? a cut of over half ? in 30 seconds.

But $1.3 billion over five years is a great deal of money, and Hardiman has dubbed S 990 "Son of CARA," as it is a scaled-down version of the Conservation and Reinvestment Act, the mega-land bill that environmentalists and land-trust advocates have been trying to get through Congress for several years, with only partial success.

"The reason I call it 'Son of CARA' is that it is just a fraction of what they [environmentalists] want," Hardiman explained. "We've really beaten them up on the CARA bill so badly that now they're just taking little pieces of it and trying to slip these through."

But there are differences, he added. "CARA was a 15-year authorization for guaranteed money. It is a trust fund: guaranteed money for 15 years. A total disaster. CARA-Lite, which did pass last year, is a five-year program with several hundred million for land acquisition each year. S 990 is a Son of CARA, which is several hundred million more for up to five years, but it is not a trust fund. It is not guaranteed money. They will have to go back and ask Congress for it every year, and there's no guarantee they're going to get it."

But money matters aside, in Hardiman's view the most egregious section in S 990 is the one amending the Endangered Species Act.

"This is the most dangerous part of the bill, as well as the most overlooked," Hardiman told WorldNetDaily. "If it passes, people will have to worry not only about endangered and threatened species on their property, but 'at risk' species, too."
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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29743

A major environmental bill went down in defeat in the U.S. Senate Wednesday, as proponents failed to persuade certain of their colleagues to remove the "holds" they had placed on it to block its passage.

"It's a huge victory for grass-roots activists," exclaimed lobbyist Mike Hardiman, who represents the American Land Rights Association, the group that has spearheaded the opposition to S 990. "It was a genuine grassroots revolution ? spontaneous combustion from the bottom up."

As WorldNetDaily reported Monday, S 990 ? the American Wildlife Enhancement Bill ? a measure that had drawn the ire of many property-rights advocates, was approved by "unanimous consent" of the House of Representatives at 2:35 a.m. Friday morning, just minutes before adjourning for the year. The request was made by Rep. James Hansen, R-Utah, who is retiring at the end of this session. Only a handful of representatives were present.

S 990 ? which had been passed by the Senate Dec. 22 in much the same way, in the dead of night, just before adjournment, and by unanimous consent of the three or four members present ? was sent immediately to the Senate for final approval.

But the tactic didn't work this time.

Under the Senate's unanimous consent rules, if one member objects to a bill it must be removed from the consent calendar and cannot be considered until next year.

In response to concerns expressed by constituents in faxes and e-mails that flowed into Senate offices over the weekend, by Monday one anonymous senator had placed a hold on S 990. By Wednesday, two others had joined him, and their names, too, have not been made public.

Hardiman reports that Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., who introduced the bill in 2001, and cosponsor Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., "worked it and worked it, and tried to get the holds taken off, but guess what? Instead of giving in, the three senators held firm and were joined by three more."

S 990 is dead for the session.

"It's had a stake driven through it," says Hardiman, who is quick to point out that neither he nor ALRA carried the ball by themselves ? there were people on the Hill who helped behind the scenes.

"This is all part of the very ugly, dark-of-night, sausage-making process," Hardiman said. "It works both ways: Terrible things get done, but good things get done, too. And in this effort there were heroes and heroines who can never be publicly acknowledged or thanked."

Hardiman attributes S 990's defeat to the force of grass roots that bolstered the resolve of the opponents on the Hill. Several major organizations spoke out in opposition ? the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the National Water Resources Association (which is the Western irrigators) ? and their members responded.

So, too, did the rank-and-file property-rights advocates across the country. Some senate offices were so swamped by incoming messages that they turned off their fax machines and put their telephones on answering machines during business hours. The e-mails were even more overwhelming.

For Hardiman, there were two reasons for the popular rallying that led to S 990's defeat.

In his words: "Number one, on its merits it was a terrible, terrible piece of legislation. It called for a dramatic expansion of the Endangered Species Act, combined with hundreds of millions of dollars for land acquisition.

"Number two, the hidden, dark-of-night manner by which the environmentalists tried to get it through."

But a victory of this kind would not have been possible without the Internet. It was through the Internet that the American Land Rights Association was able to communicate information to its members, who picked up the ball and ran with it. The members contacted others, who contacted others, in ever-widening circles.

"Due to the modern technology of the Internet, the facts of the issue and the merits of the bill were laid out to grass-roots activists ? tens of thousands of them across the country," Hardiman explained. "Backing up the descriptions of the bill's shortcomings was the underhanded ? manner in which was being sneaked through the legislative process. The underhanded way in which the bill was moving served to confirm how bad the non-merits of the bill really were."

For Hardiman, this shows that if there's a legitimate case to be made for or against something, the system works.

"The people can speak out, they can pass good bills and they can defeat bad ones. They can take on the big, powerful, big-money environmental interests," he said. "They can defeat them and take them to the cleaners."