RJ Smith

Remembering Roger MacBride

by RJ Smith on June 14, 2011

in Features, Zeitgeist

Post image for Remembering Roger MacBride

The news of the passing of John Hospers brought renewed attention to his receiving an electoral vote in the 1972 presidential election, as the first nominee of the Libertarian Party. The man casting that vote, Roger MacBride (who passed away in 1995), has often been described as a “faithless” elector, because he was allegedly “committed” to voting for the incumbent, Richard Nixon.

Well, Roger would argue that he was neither a faithless nor renegade elector. He was an expert on the history of the Constitution and the thinking of the Founding Fathers, and once even did a research paper/thesis on the history of the Electoral College. In fact, he may have known more about it than any other person, since he literally wrote the book on it: The American Electoral College, which was published by Caxton Printers in 1963. Roger believed that there was no binding requirement for electors to uphold the popular vote, but that they were free to vote their conscience. He was doing his duty.

I knew Roger fairly well. We met in 1976, when I was in Boise, Idaho, doing radio and TV ads for the Steve Symms campaign. He flew in in his tricked-out private DC-3 campaign plane –which he piloted. I also knew Rose Wilder Lane very well starting back in 1959. She became a regular visiting teacher at Robert LeFevre’s Freedom School in Colorado. I had a dinner party for her and for all Los Angeles-area libertarians at my parents’ home around 1960. I used to go up and stay at her little cottage in Danbury, Connecticut, throughout the 1960s. She died in 1968.

As is well known, Roger became her unofficial adopted “grandson.” More importantly, he produced the “Little House on the Prairie” TV series and inherited the vast Laura Ingalls Wilder/Rose Wilder Lane literary estate, becoming immensely wealthy. Roger met Rose when he was a teenager. She wrote for Reader’s Digest, where Roger’s father was an editor. They became very close and he called her “grandma” (she was more than 40 years his senior). After graduating from Harvard Law, he became her attorney and then heir.

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E. coli Happens

by RJ Smith on July 17, 2009

in Agriculture, Environment, Private Conservation

This story in the San Francisco Chronicle just shows the insanity of the conventional wisdom these days advanced by greens and anti-corporate farmers. They blame big agriculture for E. coli problems and some propose foolish laws and regulations that will simply create other problems.

Despite claims to the contrary, profits don’t cause microbes. And it’s not big “industry” farming that is the culprit. Small farms and family farmers can have just as much difficulty—if not more–eliminating pathogens.

E. coli just happens. And you can’t stop it. Deer, “wild” pigs, mountain lions, every kind of mouse, rat, ground squirrel, and whatever wild animal can carry virulent microbes. Same with irrigation water. Same with birds flying over the fields. And the barren buffer strips that some have proposed to keep these animals away don’t halt anything; they simply lead to water pollution.

Unfortunately, such foolish “wisdom” undermines good conservation efforts. For example, it discourages conservation at California vineyards. In the past, some have gone out of their way to use tail ponds to collect irrigation and rain water–and any dissolved pollutants–and then pump it back up hill for more irrigation. These tail ponds themselves become wetland habitats. Similarly, vineyards in the Temecula area, Viansa Winery, and others pioneered placing hawk roosting and nesting structures on their property to attract birds of prey to help control rodents, as well as placing nesting boxes for owls and falcons. Yet now the conventional “wisdom” is that such conservation efforts contribute E. Coli and should be dispensed with. In reality, such policies are surely more foolish than wise.

Photo: Escherichia coli bacterium, courtesy of the CDC Public Health Image Library.

Senators Act on Clean Water Restoration Act

by RJ Smith on June 19, 2009

in Agriculture, Environment, Natural Resources

Yesterday, in a mere one hour and seventeen minutes, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee sailed through S. 787—the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA). This bill would remove the word “navigable” from the Clean Water Act, expanding the federal regulatory power under the Clean Water Act (CWA) to include such things as puddles on farms and other private property around the nation. For background on this legislation see my prior blog post, this site, and this press blog. Former CEI staffer, Jonathan Adler, also delivered very good testimony on these issues as well last year.

The final bill was a slightly modified alternative amendment worked out yesterday by Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mt.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) This Baucus “compromise” is largely window dressing, maintaining the existing Clean Water Act exemptions for some agricultural activities in the new CWRA. This was to lure farmers into supporting the CWRA. At best it might have gained them one farm organization.

Senators James Inhofe (R-Okla.), David Vitter (R-La.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) were heroic in their efforts to defend private property rights and states’ water rights and prevent most of the American land and water from effectively being federalized/nationalized.

Inhofe said in his opening statement that the bill represents a dagger aimed right at the heart of rural America, but that there was no way to stop it in committee. He vowed a very robust effort to defeat it on the floor.

Vitter submitted two amendments. One would allow the president to override the CWRA in the case of natural disasters such as hurricanes, so that recovery efforts would not be delayed or halted. Boxer said public health would be compromised if exemptions were provided. Senator Thomas Carper (D-Del.) said Vitter’s amendment would undermine the intent of the bill.

Boxer and Carper argued they weren’t expanding any government authority–simply returning to the authority of the CWA as it was prior to the SWANCC and Rapanos Supreme Court decisions. Boxer repeated that theme over and over. For more information on these decisions see this paper of Jonathan Adler.

Vitter responded that it restores nothing that was ever in the CWA–instead it returns to the vastly expansive definition of navigable which federal bureaucrats had achieved in order to usurp powers not granted to the federal government (such as the migratory bird rule, the “glancing goose test”), which was why the Supreme Court had to step in and point out that navigable meant navigable.

It was defeated on a voice vote.

Vitter offered another amendment to include language that the use of mosquito control pesticides would never be required to obtain permits under the CWRA. This provision would allow that mosquito control efforts to prevent control of diseases such as West Nile. There have been movements to require such permits and there are currently cases in court. This too was defeated on a voice vote and a roll call vote. [more hotlinks]

Barrasso then offered a series of amendments, basically aimed at restricting the vast new “wetlands” listed as waters of the US.

His first amendment was to prohibit the federal government from taking over all streams and intermittent streams within a state. He explained: “No one in Washington D.C. has the right to seize and control our streams.” They are already adequately protected under state laws. Under this bill, streams that only flow when storm water runoff fills them would be placed under control of Washington. This one was defeated on voice vote. Other defeated Barrasso amendments included:

• An amendment was designed to prevent Federal government from taking all mudflats in the 50 states.
• An amendment to prevent US takeover of all prairie potholes in the states, with vast numbers being on private farmland and ranchland.
• An amendment to prohibit federal takeover of all wet meadows.
• An amendment to prevent EPA takeover of all natural ponds.
• An amendment to protect and exempt agriculture under the CWRA.
• An amendment that would prohibit controls on animal farming: cattle, sheep, goats, fish, crawfish, etc.
• An amendment that would require that specific language be inserted in the bill to clearly exempt ground water from the regulatory authority of the CWRA.

The fact that all these were defeated, just goes to show the extensive regulatory scope of this bill. Inhofe asked that his name also be attached to all of the amendments.

Midway through these amendments Boxer asked Barrasso if he had any more amendments. He responded yes. She replied “Boy you are a glutton for punishment.” So much for respect for property rights and the Fifth Amendment.

Then Boxer called for the vote on S.787 as amended and it very quickly passed 12-7 on strict party lines.

Now we wait to see what happens in the Senate and what Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) does in the House.

Senator Inhofe said in committee that there is no chance of the CWRA passing on the Senate floor. And in a post-mark-up press release reiterated: “The CWRA faces certain demise if it ever reaches the Senate floor.”

Also Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) placed a hold on the bill.

Let’s hope that Senator Inhofe’s optimism is well founded.

Photo Source and caption: USAF, carries the caption: “Airman 1st Class Corey Turpin, 28th Civil Engineer Squadron pest management apprentice, tosses larvicide into a pool of water, May 14. The larvicide keeps mosquitoes in their larvae stage to stop them from maturing. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Anthony Sanchelli).”  Such mosquito control activities could become very difficult under the Clean Water Restoration Act.

Clean Water Hoax

by RJ Smith on June 17, 2009 · 3 comments

in Agriculture, Environment

Sen. Barbara Boxer and company are going to bring the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA) up for full committee mark-up and vote in their Thursday 18 June business session scheduled for 9:30 a.m. in the EPW Hearing Room, 406 Dirksen. This is Sen Russ Feingold’s S.787 which was introduced on April 2.

With the Democrats having nationalized the financial, banking and automobile industries–bringing a strong layer of socialism to the key portions of the US economy, they are now moving to nationalize the American land and water. Under the Clean Water Act (CWA) the Federal government only had the authority to regulate “navigable waters” and control the discharge of pollutants and dredge and fill activities within those navigable waters.

The so-called Clean Water Restoration Act restores nothing. That is a hoax. Instead it removes the restrictive and limiting terms “navigable” waters and unconstitutionally extends the Federal regulatory authority over ALL waters of the United States. This includes the driest desert areas that may only hold water for a few weeks a year during summer monsoon rains. And it includes completely isolated prairie potholes (small ponds and marshes) with no connection whatsoever to any other waters.

Furthermore, the bill will now prohibit ALL activities affecting all waters of the United States. This means that anything a landowner, a business, a county roads department, a waterfowl conservation program undertakes that could conceivably affect anything that is wet–will be subject to the discretionary jurisdiction of Army Corps or EPA bureaucrats. They will then be able to make the lives of family farmers, ranchers, tree farmers, home builders–almost anyone and everyone–literally impossible. They will have the total power to force every farmer or rancher or ordinary business owner to run a gauntlet of permits, red tape, delays–that will delay projects long enough and cost so much as to essentially shut down or bankrupt even the most necessary and innocuous projects.

There are copious examples of wetlands horror stories over the last 20 years where people have been imprisoned and fined staggering amounts for simply building their own home, cleaning up dumps, or creating habitat for waterfowl. And that occurred under the existing CWA restrictions of “navigable waters” and prohibitions only on discharging pollutants and dredge and fill activities. Once those constraints limiting regulations to “navigable waters” are removed by the CWRA, life will quickly become an even worse bureaucratic nightmare with no exit–particularly so throughout all of rural America. This bill would be much more honestly named The Rural Cleansing Act of 2009.

Before attempting to unconstitutionally extend their reach to include such things as a rancher’s isolated pond in northern Montana, one would think that those concerned with clean water and fishable water would first want to continue work on cleaning up the major navigable waters in the county like, perhaps, the polluted Potomac and Anacostia Rivers that flow past both sides of the U.S. Capitol. Indeed if the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee had kept their attention on the goal and if the Federal bureaucrats had not spent so much money and time over the past two decades trying to regulate lands and waters they had no constitutional authority over–maybe we would have far cleaner and healthier waters today.

For more information see here.

Photo by Micah Laaker from Flickr creative commons.

Misinformation Won’t Save Species

by RJ Smith on June 15, 2009

in Environment, Private Conservation

If we want to help save species, we need to start getting the facts right about what problems we need to address. Unfortunately, the press circulates much misinformation. Look at the misinformation in this AP story. It points out that the Aplomado Falcons disappeared from US more than a half century ago and that the first cause was “pesticides.”

The last official record for Arizona was 1940. And the falcons began disappearing rapidly by the first decade of the 1900s. In 1887, there were five nesting pairs at Ft. Huachuca alone. But from 1896 to to 1899 not a single falcon was found there by another top ornithologist based at the fort.

So these birds were gone by 1940 in Arizona and probably by the 1950s in New Mexico and Texas. That was long before the widespread application of pesticides–especially in the Southwest. Obviously they had been declining and disappeared before the onset of the pesticide era.

Photo source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service public use digital library.

Never Ending Land Grabs

by RJ Smith on June 10, 2008

Thanks to the Greens, the US Congress and the administration to continue locking up the American land. Yesterday, the House easily approved three more wilderness bills.

* Tom Udall’s (D-NM) HR 2632 created 16,000 acres of new wilderness in northeast New Mexico.

* Jim Costa (D-CA) and Devin Nunes (R-CA) were able to add 113,500 acres of new Wilderness in two areas in the southern Sierra with HR 3022.

* Mary Bono’s (R-CA) HR 3682 created 41,000 additional acres of wilderness in four areas, and just for good measure created 31 miles of new wild & scenic rivers.

And the beat goes on.

Previously the House had approved new wilderness bills for Oregon and West Virginia and recently the Senate’s omnibus multi-bill land grab package created the long-delayed Washington state “wild sky wilderness.” Bush quickly signed that omnibus monstrosity.

The National Wilderness System already includes over 104,000,000 acres of land—that is an area larger than the entire state of California—most of which has never been inventoried for vital minerals or energy reserves, and is now locked up forever. It can only be used by a tiny percentage of the population as all mechanized equipment is forbidden—including for rescue operations. The unmanaged forests are the source for insect infestations and disease and uncontrollable forest fires. And we keep creating more and more.

The gates are wide open for all these land grabs with no more than a handful of Republicans strongly fighting them. And of course purported Republicans are dropping their own Federal land grab bills left and right. Strict constitutionalist and pro-property rights advocate Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) tried to demand that there at least be recorded roll call votes on these land grabs and lock-ups, but he has met resistance even from Republican leaders. These bills are passed with what amounts to a legislative stealth bomber—bombing the American people with these land grabs under “suspension of the rules.” That means these bills are passed under the usual radar: there is little debate, no amendments, and no recorded vote. The speaker simply calls for a voice vote in a chamber that is basically empty.

Private lands and resources are being acquired by Fed, state, county and local governments at a rapid rate. Increased amounts of private lands are regulated or tied up in Bush administration “partnerships,” perpetual conservation easements, and “cooperative” conservation agreements. And government lands are then locked up in non-use wilderness or quasi-wilderness areas. America is already on its way to becoming a third world country where most land is owned and mismanaged by government. Congress won’t have to bother to pass climate control legislation because soon there won’t be much economic activity to control.

Disappointing ESA Developments

by RJ Smith on February 29, 2008

The new testimony and announcements by DOI/USFWS regarding coming Endangered Species Act (ESA) listings and changes are most interesting.

First, DOI announced a major change in its barely two-year old critical habitat designation for the Canada Lynx. Critical habitat had been restricted to 2,000 square miles. Now it has been vastly increased to 43,000 square miles.

Recreation industry and timber industry had lobbied hard and testified on lack of need for such a vast critical habitat designation — and thought that common sense had won out. These groups feared that the possible occurrence of the lynx might shut down the Northern Rockies Ecosystem. But the DOI critical habitat change underscores how ephemeral any kind of deal with the Feds is. Regardless of what they promise or sign, as soon as there is Green pressure they can — and seemingly will — instantly overturn everything.

A Greenwire story points out that this will not have any effect on private land — unless of course landowners need “permits on their land.” Can you think of any project for building a home, digging an irrigation ditch or drainage ditch, whatever, that doesn’t require local, county, state or Federal permits?

According to another article in Greenwire today, the Bush administration, looking forward to leaving its Green legacy, announced a huge push to decide on 71 listing proposals during the remaining ten months of 2008 and another 21 for 2009.

USFWS Director Dale Hall, responding to criticism from Greens and media for not having listed more species, stated in Greenwire: “It took us a little bit, but we hope this will get us back on track. We slipped out of the mode.”

What mode? What track? Is there some prize for the administration that lists the most species? Must a certain number of species be listed each year? Maybe fewer species need listing. Maybe much more care needs to be taken in deciding which species to list or which to list first?

The criticism is that George W. Bush has only listed 8 species, while Clinton listed 62 species and George H.W. Bush listed 56 species.

So will the Greens now give the Oscar to George W. Bush? Even William Snape and the Center for Biodiversity praised (lightly) Bush.

Why not simply list every species and get it over with once and for all, since that is the logic of the Greens. One noted Green has I believe proposed listing some 7,000 plants. An all-inclusive uniform listing of all species would save billions of dollars and allow more concentration on recovery plans!

Bureaucratic Version of Playing God

by RJ Smith on October 22, 2007 · 4 comments

Here’s further proof that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and their collectives are clueless. Embroiled in a silly debate over what species residing in the United States are native or not, they have decided to promulgate mosquito control management regulations for the 97 million acres of National Wildlife Refuge lands (nearly the size of the state of California and almost precisely three times the size of the state of Arizona.)

The very first thing they have decided is that native mosquito species must be allowed to continue to exist unimpeded because mosquitoes are natural components of most wetlands.

God forbid you are an alien, non-native mosquito serving as a vector for a deady disease. But how do the Feds tell them apart? And so even though non-native mosquitoes are not protected, you can’t spray them when they are causing disease, because that will involve spraying native mosquitoes as well. Catch 22.

And control measures can only be taken if the mosquito populations become an animal or human health threat. Well, they already are. Good old all-American mosquitoes have been knocking off animals, refuge wildlife and humans, with equine encephalitis for decades. I had a doctor buddy who spent his entire military service trapping songbirds at Chincoteague NWR and drawing blood samples to determine if they were carrying encephalitis back during the Korean War.

Native mosquito species are also vectors for deadly human and wildlife diseseas. Why is that not the foremost concern of the USFWS? How many people are going to have to die before they decide it’s time for control? It’s a just matter of numbers — just how many deaths are acceptable before the media pick it up and FWS allows mosquito control officials to take action.

Why should they be able to able to play God?

Invasive Species — Eastern Liberal Intruders Locking up the West

by RJ Smith on October 18, 2007

Today, the House Natural Resources Committee is considering the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, sponsored by Representatives Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Christopher Shays (R-CT). It would designate nearly 7 million acres of federal lands in Montana as Wilderness, along with some 17 million acres more in four other states. Yet Montana already has 3.5 million acres of Wilderness, or 4 percent of the land. That’s a 200 percent increase. In 1988 Reagan wisely vetoed a 1.4 million acre Wilderness addition in Montana because it was excessive. This proposal would become the single largest lock-up of land in over a quarter century, locking the American people out of the land they all supposedly own.

The legislation’s sponsors—essentially carpetbaggers from the east coast—want to deprive people who live out west from using resources on this land. Leaving these forests unmanaged will mean yet more disease, insects, and unfightable wild fires. Apparently, the eastern liberals want to make the “public” lands the exclusive playground of only the wealthiest Americans. The sponsors appear to be “geographically challenged” as well. The Northern Rockies in their bill include not just Montana, Idaho and Wyoming — but also Oregon and Washington. Why not Hawaii?

Moreover, the bill not only creates 24 million additional acres of Wilderness, but includes still more Wild & Scenic Rivers and Wildlife Corridors to help Grizzly Bears, Mountain Lions, Canada Lynx, Gray Wolf, etc., find their way to your backyard, if you live out West. Since the public and rural Americans have figured out precisely what Wildlife Corridors are and the harm they will do, the Greens and the Committee are now calling them “Biological Connecting Corridors.”

For the curious, the total acreage of Wilderness Areas (which are only a portion of the land the Feds own) in the US has now reached 107,436,608 acres — and counting. THAT IS LARGER THAN THE ENTIRE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.

After Gore: Observations on Bjorn Lomborg’s Testimony

by RJ Smith on March 23, 2007

in Environment

For those of you who missed Bjorn Lomborg’s testimony after Gore’s “triumphant return” (Katie Couric’s words, not mine) to Capitol Hill, he did a great job attacking the crisis mentality on climate change. His main point was that all peer-reviewed cost-benefit studies suggest we should do very little regarding the climate and referred to “vast frivolous projects like the Kyoto Protocol.”

Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN) did a vicious hit job on Lomborg in his introduction. He said while America takes great pride in freedom of speech, we have to separate science from opinion and that every “credible organization” has said Lomborg is basically wrong and dishonest: the Danish Scientific Committee on Dishonesty, the NAS, Science, Nature, Scientific American, etc. Gordon also said Lomborg believed “Jews weren’t singled out by Nazis”–which is an outright lie. (My colleague, Iain Murray, says that someone reviewing Lomborg’s book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, said that Lomborg’s arguments were the equivalent of saying the Nazis didn’t single out Jews.)

Lomborg quietly responded “Thank you very much for your welcome here.”

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA), who always wraps himself in God, was even nastier, if possible. He said: “In Genesis we were given the moral obligation to take care of the Creator’s garden.” You’re not telling us that we should not obey the word of God are you? You’re saying America is not capable of taking care of HIV, malaria, and global warming all at the same time. But I am here to tell you you’re wrong. Maybe Denmark can’t do all those things at the same time, but America can.”

Lomborg’s response was great: “If you say you can and will do all these things, why didn’t you do them in the past 10 years?” He went on to point out “If it’s so easy (costless) to reduce CO2, why did CO2 emissions rise 18% while Gore was VP?”

After Gordon’s initial ad hominen attack on Lomborg, he left and the only Democrat who stayed was Inslee as chair. There were no other Dems at any time. There were about 9-12 Republicans, most of whom commented on the fact that the Dems had no interest in ideas or the truth, that they only wanted to applaud Gore and then leave. By far the two outstanding GOP stars who asked the most intelligent questions and who seemed to understand what was going on, etc., were John Shadegg of AZ and John Shimkus of IL. Clearly they were both well-versed and had had some good staff work. (Shadegg also said the Dems must be afraid to hear what you’re saying and that’s why none of them are here.)

Lomborg to Shadegg: re Gore freezing CO2 emissions, “You could do it, but it wouldn’t accomplish anything.” On cutting C02 emissions by 90%, Lomborg said “I just think it is ludicrous and cost would be in excess of $85 trillion.”

Sullivan of Oklahoma asked for the two most outrageous Gorisms. Lomborg’s response: “The 20 foot sea level rise is unbelievable — especially that he can get away with saying those things.” And “That it’s actually going to be costless reducing emissions and that we’ll actually make money doing it.”

Inslee became indignant that Lomborg was criticizing Gore, “You have constantly, repeatedly misrepresented what the vice president of the United States has said.”

Lomborg also stressed how Gore and others never discuss both sides of an issue. They go on and on about heat deaths and never mention cold deaths. A couple of times he talked about how in the UK everyone is still talking about 2,000 heat deaths from a few years ago but don’t say a word about the 25,000-plus cold deaths that occur every year. He said of course there will be an increase in heat deaths, but there will be a vast decrease in cold deaths.

I’m sure Lomborg irritated Inslee and Gordon appearing suitless and tieless, wearing his tight black muscle T-shirt.

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