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GOP seeks big-government power grab along borders
Nathan Cote
You might not have noticed, but in the last few weeks our nation has witnessed an attempted big-government power grab the likes of which we have rarely seen.
Republicans in Congress who were elected on the platform of a smaller federal government are pushing through an unprecedented power grab in the name of border security. Unlike the bill I passed as a state representative that established a venue for cooperation between border law-enforcement agencies, their bill has possible undertones of violating the U.S. Constitution, country-to-country agreements, and other problematic issues.
H.R. 1505, the National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act, was passed out of the House Natural Resources Committee last month. The bill is championed by Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah and has serious implications for New Mexico. Fortunately, we have a couple of congressmen who get it: Reps. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján thoughtfully voted against it in the Natural Resources Committee.
The bill actually does nothing to improve our security and does the complete opposite of protecting our lands because it gives the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), units of the Department of Homeland Security, the power to override three dozen basic public health and environmental protections like the Clean Air Act and Safe Drinking Water Act. Protecting drinkable, clean water needs to be the center of discussion in the very areas in which H.R. 1505 would dismantle current safeguards.
As citizens who have served our country, many of us are now alarmed that Congress is moving legislation forward that would undermine the protection of public lands that help define our freedom and what it is to be an American.
What would the bill do?
So what would this poorly named National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act actually do?
Well most important, it would give CPB the authority to shut down access to any federal lands within 100 miles of the U.S. border with Canada or Mexico. It would allow CBP to build roads, fences, and other infrastructure and take vehicles anywhere they’d like on public lands despite current designation or management of these lands as national parks, wildlife refuges, or wilderness areas. Access by law enforcement agencies through cooperative agreements are already in place, so the underlying intent of this legislation may dismantle much of the work that has already been accomplished.
In addition, access to these public lands could be immediately closed with no public notice or avenues for public recourse, such as the courts, based on the whims of one federal agency. It’s scary stuff, especially if you are a student of historical government disasters or support multiple-use access to public lands.
The bill would also give Customs and Border Protection broad and invasive powers to override any law protecting public lands within that 100-mile buffer of our nation’s border with Canada and Mexico.
Keep in mind these are powers that Customs and Border Protection have never asked for and do not want. CBP already has the authority to use vehicles off-road on any public lands when in pursuit of suspected cross-border violators.
In fact, Customs and Border Protection officials have testified that the department already has a close working relationship with land-management agencies. Ronald Vitiello, deputy chief of Customs and Border Protection, testified in April 2011 that his agency “enjoys a close working relationship with the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Agriculture that allows CBP to fulfill its border enforcement responsibilities while respecting and enhancing the environment.” This bill would place these agreements in jeopardy, and in their place we would likely see the breakdown of inter-agency collaboration.
The Tea Party should be marching in the street against this
So, if the agencies have never asked for this unprecedented power to usurp the rule of law all in the name of security, why then would certain members of Congress be pushing so hard to pass a bill that provides one agency a level of unilateral power rarely seen before?
It sounds like a “big-government-at-its-worst” move that the Tea Party should be marching in the streets against.
Who can say what the motives of the bill’s supporters are? Their support for this misguided power grab is at its best hypocrisy and, at its worst, an underhanded attempt to subvert and chip away at laws designed to protect public lands and the environment.
How else could you justify the congressional Republicans going against their core principles by giving one agency historic powers to skirt the laws of the land and possibly the U.S. Constitution? Think about the power that is then in the hands of our executive, our president.
Cote, a Democrat, is a former state representative for District 53.
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It appears as though former State Rep Cote has caught the right wing of the Republican Party attempting to take control of all public lands along both borders estimated at approximately 750,000 sq miles. The point he seems to be making is why such a lenthy distance from the border when probably three miles of concentrated effort in-land along the border would be more effective in additon to partnership incentives between several federal agencies. If jrnm would sit back and think about it without taking a partisan view of the facts, Rep Cote makes,sense. If jrnm believes the border needs to be secured in this manner then I would ask the question of where is Congressman Steve Pearce in this mix, isn’t he the one who’s district has the entire NM portion of the Mexican border and why isn’t he sponsoring border security efforts rather than a congressman from Utah? It’s obvious that Pearce has his fingerprints on this as he chairs the western caucus of the Republican Party. An understanding of the process recognizes that this bill had to have been discussed in a Republican caucus. It appears as though Pearce wants to be invisible with this legislation as it is totally nonsensical. Think about the 100 miles from the Canadian border that is included and all the coal and gas that is in the northern tier states, not to mention the fossile fuel located along the southern border. This effort would then allow logging in the Lincoln National Forest with a few unsustainable jobs, his lizard problem, and those other unrealistic and failing efforts of planting fear in his district. Congressman Pearce will not stop his efforts to gain control of as much public land as possible without regard for mother earth and how it will effect the future of our children. I doubt that the two moderate Republican senators from Maine who understands the need to protect the future of our air and water will support this effort. It this bill looks like an oil well, smells like an oil well, and sounds like an oil well, then it’s an oil well.
Sigh, so many ill-conceived comments, so little time….
I’ll start with jmm. I do remember Robert Krentz. What would really help, I believe, is if ALL the officials working in the border areas had the authority to stop and ID anyone they found in those areas. At present I think they have to have “probable cause,” which makes their job very difficult.
But jmm states, “So what if it takes 100,000 or 200,000, do what it takes to close the border.” 200,000 X ~$50,000 per for training, salary and benefits equals 10 Billion dollars. That will add to the national debt and increase the size of the Federal government, remember? Especially if the TEA Party sticks to the no new taxes platform. Also, the Otero county TEA Party is strongly opposed to Federal control of “our” lands, remember the thinning project back on October 16, I think, sponsored by the Otero County Commission, with Pearce featured cutting down a tree? HB 1505 should probably be called the Federalization of Border Control Bill and also be strongly opposed by the TEA Party. I think they should favor a bill which puts county sheriffs in control.
What declarations? If you could please keep the World Net Daily conspiracy theories elsewhere, jrnm, we would all appreciate it. We deal in facts here. Most of those innocent people are dying on the Mexican side of the border because of our citizens keeping the cartels in business; the root of the problem isn’t the crossing of inexpensive laborers that we have made integral to our economy. The root of the problem is right here at home, and it doesn’t matter how many people you put on the border if we don’t fix the problem here at home. Period. Besides, if the pattern of more agents catching fewer illegal immigrants keeps holding true, your 200,000 agents would only manage to catch about 40,000 immigrants. You’ll pardon me if I mock the cost-effectiveness of your delusional version of mathematics.
(Also, a self correction: that which I said wasn’t a typo before actually was; I meant to write 500%, not 5000%. The irony is not lost on me).
And Author, you are, quite frankly, babbling; blanket evidence-free attacks against a philosophy that created this country in the first place and which you obviously lack the basic motivation to even bother to understand doesn’t make you witty; it merely makes you irrelevant.
Here is the Tea Party’s xenophobic vision of the Mexican Border problem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7DDSyQVgTE
It may be parody, but it represents the simplistic answer to Mexican border problem
Mr. Nate Cote’s truthful commentary is right on target! The National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act is a travesty.
Not mentioned is the outstanding work of Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall who have worked very hard to build a consensus in the community and have addressed the real concerns of constituents. Since the 1960′s, residents in Dona Ana County have been working to get Wilderness designation for our majestic Organ Mountains. The excellent Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act was described as “a model for the future” by the US Customs and Border Protection. Even the Republicans for Environmental Protection wholeheartedly supported the Wilderness legislation.
Mr Cote has a knack for twisting the truth, as do most of the Progressives. The Progressives is an oxymoron and does not stand for the protection of the people or the land.
The same would be the case for Jeff Steinborn being elected to Congress should he be foolish enough to run. He cannot pick up the mantle of Jeff Bingaman and push through a bill that the majority of the people now see as a gamut to tie up the land as was espoused by the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Alliance that is an offshoot of the same.
Mr Cote has no conception of the dangers along the border, nor does he have any knowledge of what is happening in Mexico. At present the cartels are close to being stronger than the government. Kidnappings of anyone suspected of having access to huge amounts of money in the United States are kidnapped and in most cases killed by the kidnappers, who most in this country think are cartel related.
The truth is a little less palatable, in that many of the crimes are committed by “ladrones” or in English common criminals taking advantage of the government of Mexico’s weakness and internal graft. In many cases the government officials are working with the criminals. The people who live close to the border need all the protection they can get and HR 1505 is only one such bill. The outright untruths spewed by Mr Cote are nothing more than we heard during the push to tie up land under a Wilderness Bill that was pushed by Bingaman. He needs to get an education as to what is happening.
So what if it takes 100,000 or 200,000, do what it takes to close the border. How many innocent people have to die because of government failure to do so.
Your plan appears to just declare the area a wilderness and allow only primitive access to slow them down???
President Obama has made null most of the activities by the CBP with his declarations. Guess we need to set up welcome wagons as well to make sure they are directed to the nearest voter registration point?
Remember Rob Krentz? How many more? Your dream of Utopia through wilderness is fatally flawed.
jrnm:
Mr. Cote is correct that this bill makes neither fiscal or logical sense; indeed, I would go further and say that it is just yet another extension of our failed policies in doing exactly what you are calling for; controlling the border. In less than twenty years, we have increased the manpower of our Border Patrol by 5000%. That’s not a typo; we have gone from just over 4,000 agents to nearly 21,000 in eighteen years. In the same period, apprehensions of illegal immigrants have decreased by nearly 64%. Clearly, what we’re doing not only isn’t working, it’s actually having the opposite of the intended effect, so maybe it’s time to stop trying the same thing over and over and hoping for different results. Clearly, a new approach is called for.
Amazing how you can bend the intent of the bill to the liberal horror story you created. It is time to control the border with Mexico NOW. People living on the fringes are living in fear of more violent attacks.