The Last Word
Monumental Audacity — Obama Grabs Huge Western Lands by Executive Order

Monumental Audacity — Obama Grabs Huge Western Lands by Executive Order

In a move that has environmental militants exulting and Western farmers, ranchers, and property owners fuming, President Obama has locked up 1.8 million acres by executive fiat, with the stroke of a pen. More lock-ups are planned.   — ...
William F. Jasper

In a move that has environmental militants exulting and western farmers, ranchers, and property owners fuming, President Obama has locked up 1.8 million acres by executive fiat, with the stroke of a pen. Millions more acres are planned to follow, part of the Obama administration’s boast to use “audacious executive actions” — read unconstitutional usurpations — to advance his radical “transformative” agenda during his last months in office.

While in California on a fundraising expedition, President Obama took time on February 12 to sign an executive order proclaiming three new national monuments, imposing the strictest of federal restrictions on 1.8 million acres of the Golden State. The three new illegally created monuments are Mojave Trails National Monument (1.6 million acres), the Sand to Snow National Monument (154,000 acres), and the Castle Mountains National Monument (21,000 acres).

"In addition to permanently protecting incredible natural resources, wildlife habitat and unique historic and cultural sites, and providing recreational opportunities for a burgeoning region, the monuments will support climate resiliency in the region," the White House said in a statement. However, the designation as monuments means that these newly "protected" areas will be off-limits to mining and mineral exploration, oil and gas drilling, grazing, timber harvest — and even to many of the current recreational uses such as camping, hiking, hunting, fishing, horseback riding, and off-road vehicle usage that the public previously has enjoyed. But that’s OK, because it’s all in the greater interest, allegedly, of “protecting” the environment and combatting global warming, according to the president.

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