BREAKING: The US House puts oceans, coasts under UN: Senate vote will seal the deal

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They are not slowing down, they plan on pushing through their Global UN Marxist agenda to destroy America as superpower.

Here are some threads that have touched or talked about pieces of this multifaceted draconian UN legislation:

US Federal Judge Declares Boating Illegal In All US Navigable Waters

Soros's Progressive Cabal Machine to Socialize America (CRIME INC)

Social Engineering Bill in Senate may force You into a City

Obama Administration using the United Nations to socialize America

Obama Administration plotting to seize Western lands without congressional approval

Redistribution of Wealth through Climate Cap and Tax

Obama Cryptically Warns He’ll Present “Very Difficult Choices to the Country”

Obama preparing fiscal task force to approve unpopular measures

Administration Plans to Lock Up 13M Acres of Federal Land

Republicans bristle at feds' land plan

The Redistribution Of Private Land Begins In The US

Obama Making Plans to Use Executive Power

Obama signs Executive Order to form THE COUNCIL OF (10) GOVERNORS

President Obama seeks Russia deal to slash nuclear weapons

Obama and Gates Gut the Military

SecDef Gates Floats Trial Balloon Of Eliminating The Marine Corps

U.S. Declares Size of Nuclear Arsenal

Obama Limits When U.S. Would Use Nuclear Arms

Obama Adminstration Retiring nuclear Tomahawk missiles

Obama opens the door for Russia to join NATO



BREAKING: US House puts oceans, coasts under UN: Senate vote will seal the deal

• September 21, 2010

Piece by piece, America being given away

By Carmen Reynolds, Paul McKain and Karen Schoen

“It’s too late; it’ll just have to be stopped in the Senate,” Tom, the young male answering the phone in U.S. Rep. John Boehner’s (R-Ohio)Washington D.C. office, said about HR 3534 (CLEAR Act).

This is the globalist bill designed to give away our land, oceans, adjacent land masses and Great Lakes to an international body, and makes us pay $900 million per year until 2040.

HR 3534 is a thinly disguised permanent roadblock to American energy which drives American companies out of the Gulf, delays future drilling, increases dependency on foreign oil, implements climate change legislation and youth education programs; but most important, it mandates membership in the Law of the Sea Treaty without the required two-thirds vote to ratify it in the U.S. Senate. Read more at LOST below

The House passed the CLEAR Act (HR 3534) 209-193, July 30, 2010. This bill was originally introduced July 8, 2009, but was resurrected by the recent Deep Water Horizon oil spill crisis. According to www.govtrack.us, a debate may be taking place on a companion bill in the Senate, rather than on this particular bill. This bill was read for the second time Aug. 4, 2010, and placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders, Calendar No. 510. No official Senate Bill number exists as of yet.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-3534

Some have said this bill would be a long shot to be approved in the Senate or it will take a while to surface. Similar assessments were made about the health-care bill. Past precedent reflects how a 2,200+-page bill can be created, printed, members held hostage, and that same bill voted on within hours to facilitate holiday recess.

This bill assesses a Conservation Fee of $2 per barrel of oil and 20 cents per million BTUs of natural gas for all leases on Federal onshore and offshore lands (Section 802). This will jettison America’s energy prices for oil and gas through the roof!

Truth is, HR 3534 could have been stopped in the House and wasn’t.

Why?

Because 21 absent Republicans chose not to show up for this critical vote, while another REP just voted Present: U.S. Rep. Gary Miller (CA-42). This legislation was so egregious; more than a handful of Democrats voted “nay” which makes the Republicans’ absence in the House chamber for the vote even more questionable. Be reminded that 193 + 17 absent votes would have killed the bill.

The Consolidated Land, Energy, Aquatic Restoration Act of 2009 (aka: CLEAR Act, HR 3534) gives away ownership of America’s oceans to the United Nations, and sectors America into nine geographic areas. This bill possesses a cap and trade/climate change component as well.

America will be forced to become a member of the UN Law of the Sea Treaty (aka: LOST), circumventing the normal two-thirds U.S. Senate vote necessary for ratification of any treaty. This was accomplished surreptitiously via Section 106 of the bill, which specifies that Executive Orders, rules, regulations, directives or delegations of authority that precede the effective date of this act are applicable to the CLEAR Act.

It just so happens two important documents did precede the CLEAR Act. Documents that contain the deleterious intent and scope of the bill: Obama’s Stewardship of the Oceans, Our Coasts and the Great LakesExecutive Order , July 19, 2010, and the Interim Report of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, July 10, 2009. Look at the time line very closely:

9-8-2009 The CLEAR Act is introduced in Congress

9-10-2009 Interim Report

The Interim Report states that the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force includes adherence to the Law of the Sea Treaty (page 14). Its purpose is to establish a comprehensive set of rules governing the oceans. The Law of the Sea Treaty calls for technology transfers and wealth transfers from developed to undeveloped nations, and requires parties to the treaty to adopt regulations and laws to control pollution of the marine environment – all under the authority of the United Nations. Such provisions were among the reasons President Ronald Reagan rejected the treaty in 1982. As Edwin Meese, U.S. Attorney General under President Reagan explained recently, “…it was out of step with the concepts of economic liberty and free enterprise that Ronald Reagan was to inspire throughout the world.”

This Interim Report will provide a recommended framework for coastal and marine spatial planning and addresses conservation, economic activity, user conflicts and sustainable use – as well as social justice. Previously, there was no money for National Marine Fisheries Service to implement its mandates and to update its fisheries data collection system. But now with the “international flavor,” $900 million a year will be dedicated to a “global” approach to our land, oceans, coastal areas and Great Lakes. Read more 1

http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/doc...rce_FINAL2.pdf

4-20-2010 BP Oil Spill. The Federal government would not accept or provide help, allowing oil to reach shores, allowing BP to dump hundreds of millions of barrel of Corexit (toxic) into the Gulf, poisoning the Gulf for future generations (www.thegulfspeaks.com).

5-20-2010 US forces moratorium on drilling, Judge says not constitutional, but the Feds issue a new version of a moratorium. Thousands are put out of work, and hundreds of millions are lost in revenues.

Wonder why the Feds did nothing for 100 days? Instead we got this Executive Order:

7-19-2010 Executive Order
Moving to the Executive Order, Obama hereby orders as follows in Section 2 (b) (iii): pursuing the United State’s accession into the Law of the Sea Convention. Note the intent to make an end run around the constitutionally required separate two-thirds U.S. Senate vote necessary to ratify a treaty by burying this in associated documents – not in the bill itself. Read more 2

CLEAR Act (Consolidated Land, Energy and Aquatic Resources, HR3534)
This act creates the Regional Outer Continental Shelf Council which will coordinate siting and development of energy resources and prepare OCS strategies. What will these strategies entail? Further moratoriums? High costs for permitting?

It amends the Land and Water Conservation fund to make $900 million available to the fund for each fiscal year until 2040 without further appropriation. It allows grants to coastal states and Indian tribes, the Secretary of the Interior to update regional assessments, regional ocean partnerships and regional coordinating councils, ensuring government, nongovernment organizations and academic entities are considered (Section 605 (a) (3) (A) (B) and (C).

Pay attention to Section 106-e: References –relating to the Service in statutes Executive Orders, rules, regulations, directives, or delegations of authority that precede the effective date of this act are deemed to refer as appropriate to the Department, to its officers, employees, or agents, or to its corresponding organizational units or functions. Congress will no longer be needed to vote on those pesky little treaties; the UN will take care of everything.

The CLEAR Act repeals the Energy Policy Act of 2005 by removing royalty incentives for natural gas production from deep wells in shallow Gulf waters, removes royalty relief for deep-water production and directs the Secretary of the Interior to establish fees for leases with less than commercial quantities. So here is the Cap and Trade/ Climate part and job-killing component of the legislation. Don’t forget the Conservation Fees of $2 per barrel of oil and 20 cents per BTU of natural gas in Section 802 will be that much more we consumers must pay.

It prohibits the following authorities from developing a fishery management plan, which is the way we have been doing business: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Secretary of Commerce and Regional Fishery Management Councils. In other words, current management of our oceans within the United States will be superseded by the National Ocean Council, comprised of some of the most radical environmentalists in our Administration, co-chaired by Nancy Sutley, White House Council on Environmental Quality and Dr. John P. Holdren, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill...34&tab=summary
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/...-ocean-council)

The true intent of the CLEAR Act and its associated documents will change the way we do business with regard to our land, oceans, coastal areas and Great Lakes. All air space above the oceans, what operates in, through, on or is derived from underneath the water, will be subject to taxes as a world resource to the United Nations – Agenda 21. These areas will no longer be owned and managed solely by the United States, as they are newly defined as a global revenue, “social justice” source per the Law of the Sea Treaty.

All life in these waterways and all adjacent land masses will be directly affected by this legislation. Decisions will be guided by the Rio Declaration of 1992, requiring no scientific proof of threats or damage to justify corrective action, more regulations and fines.

Consensus is the objective, but the president will make the final decision if one can’t be reached. The Administration will retain the final determination on resolving disputes with States and their governors (Section 222). Read more 3

http://www.eoearth.org/article/United_Nations_Conference_on_Environment_and_Devel opment_(UNCED),_Rio_de_Janeiro,_Brazil#gen2

7-30-2010 The House of Representatives passes the CLEAR ACT. Did House REP’s read it? Or are they sheep, thieves or traitors, proud of themselves for giving our AMERICA away?

READ THE BILL SENATORS… The House just gave away our sovereignty, and we are paying $900 million per year until 2040 to create three new bureaucracies: Bureau of Energy and Resource Management, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and the Office of Natural Resources Revenue, plus all the inspectors and accountants that accompany them. No telling how much of this will be funneled through the International entities and councils even before the additional global taxes are eventually assessed on top of this. See organizational diagram below (not posted yet)



It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to ascertain the way to stop any sovereignty-killing legislation is in the House, not in the Senate. This is due to sheer numbers and because of the past “assists” bipolar senators such as Snowe, Collins, Lugar, Graham, McCain, Voinovich, Brownback, Castle and Scott Brown have provided.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) is a strong proponent of the Law of the Sea Treaty. Other Republican senators that support this legislation include: Alexander (R-TN) and Murkowski (R-AK). Previously supportive were former Sens. Allen (VA), Hagel (NE), and Chafee (RI). There is no way to determine whether their replacements have been influenced (pay to play?) for upcoming votes.

Remember, America has already missed the “House” opportunity because of:

Republicans not doing their jobs

Those Republicans in the House that let America down by not being present and voting:

Parker Griffith (R-AL) C.W. Young (R-FL) Michael Rogers (R-MI)
John Shadegg (R-AZ) John Linder (GA) W. Akin (R-MO)
George Radanovich (R-CA) Stephen Buyer (R-IN) Roy Blount (R-MO)
Devin Nunes (R-CA) Jerry Moran (R-KS) Henry Brown (R-SC)
Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) James Barrett (R-SC)
Howard McKeon (R-CA) Geoff Davis (R-KY) Zach Wamp (R-TN)
John Campbell (R-CA) Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) Samuel Johnson (R-TX)

Voting Present: Gary Miller (R-CA-42)
Source: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2010-513

It is now incumbent on Americans, regardless of party, to contact senators to insist that America stay America – retaining sovereign rights to our lands, oceans, waterways, Great Lakes, our minerals, recreational and commercial fishing industries, transocean cables, commerce, oil/gas energy production, food sources and the right to operate navy vessels to defend ourselves, including submarines that carry weapons.

The Senate must not vote in any way, shape or form for the sovereignty-robbing Consolidated Land, Energy, Aquatic Restoration Act, period.

Paul McKain, Independent candidate for Florida’s U.S. House District 2, researched and uncovered the initial information contained in this article after being asked to speak at a 9-11 Memorial Weekend in Northwest Florida. He is a former teacher, 23-year firefighter and inventor. He can be contacted at www.PaulMcKain.com.

Carmen Reynolds is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel with a BS in Criminology and Law Enforcement, MA in Business Personnel Management and BA in Journalism. She is Editor-in-Chief of boogai.net and can be reached at journalist@bellsouth.net.

Karen Schoen is a mortgage broker/owner and former teacher. She is the organizer of the Washington County Tea Party, thegulfspeaks.com and a radio show host on Repatriot Radio. __________________________________________________ ________

1. Force recommendations regarding sustainable use of oceans, coastal areas and Great Lakes resources will be consistent with international law, including international law as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Further, it mandates international collaboration with the Artic Council, the International Maritime Organization, the International Whaling Commission and the Law of the Sea Treaty.

Spatial planning is double speak for catch shares, a concept that has not been reached by consensus of the commercial and recreational fishermen stakeholders involved. With the help of legislators, these stakeholders were previously advocating more flexibility in the Magnuson-Stevens Act. This would allow for more funding for the National Marine Fisheries Service to perform new stock assessments, as well as third-party, independent stock assessments, based on up- to-date data.

This report makes continual reference to resiliency and adaptation to climate change, ocean acidification and human interference on pages 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9,10,11,13,14,15,16. It makes reference to the division of our country into spatial divisions on pages 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 13, 14. Continual references are made to land use, starting on page 11. Joining the Law of the Sea Treaty starts on pages 2, 5, 12, 14, 16. Creation of the National Ocean Council is addressed on pages 5, 6, 7, 19, 20, 21.

Problematic is this statement: “Decisions concerning our oceans will be guided by the precautionary approach as reflected in the Rio Declaration of 1992 – stating that where there are threats of damage, lack of full scientific knowledge will not be used to postpone cost-effective measures.”

http://www.eoearth.org/article/United_Nations_Conference_on_Environment_and_Devel opment_(UNCED),_Rio_de_Janeiro,_Brazil#gen2

So if we humans are threatening the waters or the land, does that mean no scientific basis must be established before cost-effective measures are established and implemented to curtail man’s potential damage or harm to this water or land? In other words, no basis in science will be required to prove these hypothetical concepts or beliefs. So decisions don’t have to be evidence-based.

Further, monies will be used to create a diverse, interdisciplinary ocean-literate workforce that has the appropriate skills and training to capitalize on the opportunities as needed. In addition, formal and informal education programs will be developed and implemented to target grades K-12 and beyond which would create opportunities for enhanced appreciation of coastal and ocean issues and better prepare the workforce of the future (pages 31, 32).

http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/doc...rce_FINAL2.pdf

2. This Executive Order assigns the National Ocean Council responsibility for implementation of the National Policy, ensuring execution of both the policy and the Administration’s objectives. Ultimately, it gives overall control of all other councils to the National Ocean Council.

Specifically, this order divides the United States into nine separate regions, initially affecting 30 states. The president will be the ultimate decision authority if a consensus can’t be reached (per Section 5 (b)). This is nothing short of absolutely scary! COG?

The Department of the Treasury will maintain the Ocean Resources and Conservation and Assistance Fund to spend the $900 million annually for grants to coastal states and Indian tribes, the Oceans, Coastal and Great Lakes Program to be developed under this plan, and regional ocean partnerships.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-...nd-great-lakes

Three parts to the Order:

According to this order the United States will be divided into 9 separate regions – initially affecting 30 states.

1. Clear ACT H.R. 3534/H.R. 5626 Creates the Regional Outer Continental Shelf Council

a. coordinate siting and development of energy resources

b. prepare Outer Continental Shelf strategies – very vague statement!

2. Each region will be dealt with separately, BUT all decisions will be made by CONSENSUS. If an agreement cannot be reached – the President will have the overall decision making power. As per Section 5 (b).

3. Amends the Land and Water Conservation Fund to:
Make $900 million available to the fund for each fiscal year until 2040 without further appropriation. Establishes in the Treasury – the Ocean Resources and Conservation and Assistance Fund (ORCA) to spend the $900 million.

3. Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development
If your freedom is important to you, the most effective action that you can take is to e-mail this article and Michael Shaw’s “Understanding Agenda 21 Sustainable Development” booklet to all of your State Legislators, County Commissioners/ Superintendents and City Council members.

Agenda 21, the international plan of action to sustainable development, outlines key policies for achieving sustainable development that meets the needs of the poor and recognizes the limits of development to meet global needs. Agenda 21 has become the blueprint for sustainability and forms the basis for sustainable development strategies. It attempts to define a balance between production, consumption, population, development, and the Earth’s life-supporting capacity. It addresses poverty, excessive consumption, health and education, cities and agriculture; food and natural resource management and several more subjects. Its 40 chapters are broken up into four sections:

1. Social and economic dimensions: developing countries; poverty; consumption patterns; population; health; human settlements; integrating environment and development.
2. Conservation and management of resources: atmosphere; land; forests; deserts; mountains; agriculture; biodiversity; biotechnology; oceans; fresh water; toxic chemicals; hazardous, radioactive and solid waste and sewage.
3. Strengthening the role of major groups: women; children and youth; indigenous peoples; non-governmental organizations; local authorities; workers; business and industry; farmers; scientists and technologists.
4. Means of implementation: finance; technology transfer; science; education; capacity-building; international institutions; legal measures; information.

4. Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST)
http://www.usasurvival.org/ck42705.shtml
According to Cliff Kincaid, America’s Survival, Inc., the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea Treaty is a measure so extreme that former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Jeane Kirkpatrick said it was viewed as the cornerstone of a Marxist-oriented New International Economic Order (NIEO).

This was conceived as a scheme to transfer money and technology from the U.S. and other developed countries to the Third World.¹ Kirkpatrick strongly opposed ratification of LOST.

Elisabeth Mann Borgese, a world government activist, was described as the “Mother of the Oceans” or “First Lady of the Oceans” for her role in crafting and promoting LOST.⁵ She not only stated her admiration for Karl Marx, the father of communism, but was an ardent advocate of the New International Economic Order.

Borgese identified several “major issues” on which LOST and the NIEO “could reinforce each other.” These included:

• LOST’s recognition of the oceans being the “Common Heritage of Mankind,” thereby placing poor countries on an “equal” relationship with advanced countries and “a right to share in the resources that had been declared to be the Common Heritage of Mankind.”
• Creation of Exclusive Economic Zones, giving coastal states control “over all resources and economic uses in a 200-mile zone.”
• Establishment of the International Seabed Authority, giving developing countries a role in “financial decision-making” on a global level.

An official 1997 World Federalist Association publication declared:
“The final treaty marked real progress in establishing global governance by…stipulating that mining of the seabeds beyond national waters should require payment of royalties to the LOS [Law of the Sea] organization, thereby creating a funding resource that would be independent of voluntary contributions by the treaty member nations. These are the elements of a limited world government in a very restricted field that is nevertheless significant.” (emphasis added).¹⁷

From acceptance of the concept of “the common heritage of mankind,” Borgese figured that adoption of global taxes would follow. Gradually, she wrote, “a development tax might be levied on all commercial uses of the global commons, starting with the oceans…”³⁰

While she was described as the mother or First Lady of the Oceans, Borgese described Avid Pardo as “the father of the Law of the Sea” who proposed “a tax to be paid by States on the exploitation of natural resources within national ocean space.” This concept, also embraced by Borgese, was incorporated in LOST.³²

It was in 1967 that Pardo,³³ who became a Maltese delegate to the United Nations,³⁴ proclaimed that the seas beyond national jurisdiction belong to “the common heritage of mankind.” He declared that the poor of the world wanted a small percentage of the profits from undersea mini
Borgese made it clear that key provisions of the treaty – never eliminated or altered by amendment — would guarantee establishment of this “new world order.” Foremost among these, she cited

• The International Seabed Authority, the “first institution to apply the economics of the Common Heritage in the No-man’s land of the deep ocean floor…”

She believed that the International Seabed Authority and coastal states could regulate “the routing, laying and the maintenance” of fiber optic cables on the ocean floor.⁴¹ This would include, she said, “the payment of fees for licenses, property taxes for cable head-ends, etc. The Authority, at present, has no such powers, but clearly, it should have them.”

She added, “For the safety of the cables themselves, the Authority must ensure the avoidance of conflict of uses of the area, it must agree to the routing and know exactly where these cables are and be informed about their maintenance. In return for these regulatory activities the Authority would be entitled to some payments. A minimal tax, either in the form of a Tobin tax, let us say of 0.001 percent on the trillion dollar annual business transacted through the cables, crossing the Area which is the Common Heritage of Mankind would not only revitalize the Authority but change the whole picture of international development cooperation and constitute a first positive answer to the insistent call ‘by the World Bank, the United Nations system and the developing countries’ for ‘innovative ways’ of generating ‘new and additional funding’ to enable developing countries to implement all the Conventions, Agreements and programs emanating from the Earth Summit of 1992.”

One former Law of the Sea Treaty negotiator told us:
There are a lot of pollution provisions in the convention. It sounds like they can do more with it than the negotiators intended. Since they didn’t get their global warming treaty (ratified by the U.S.), I worry about treaty provisions on emissions and anthropogenic (human-caused) inputs into the ocean that cause pollution. They could turn this into a global warming issue. Could they bring a case against us because we have pipes that put out sewage or air pollution that finds its way into the ocean?

But there is also a military component to the treaty.

“In this connection, Borgese believed that LOST prohibits the ability of nuclear submarines to rove freely through the world’s oceans and that the measure could be used to “eliminate the nuclear denizens of the deep and to protect the oceans as our common global heritage.”
THIS WILL ONLY APPLY TO THE US NAVY!

In an article co-authored with an international lawyer,⁴⁵ Borgese noted how LOST, or UNCLOS, as supporters call it ( for U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea) stipulates that the oceans “shall be reserved for peaceful purposes.” (emphasis in original)⁴⁶ and that “any threat or use of force, inconsistent with the United Nations Charter, is prohibited.”⁴⁷

She added, “In 1982, when UNCLOS was opened for signature, it was not certain how this applied to the deployment of nuclear weapons. However, since then, the International Court of Justice, in its historic advisory opinion of 1996, determined that ‘the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict.’ Nuclear weapons deployed on submarines are in a state of readiness to use and are thus a threat of use, according to the definition given by the ICJ, and illegal.” (emphasis added).

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Help Defeat the CLEAR Act, a Federal Land Grab

John Birch Society



The Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources Act of 2009 (CLEAR Act) H.R. 3534: has cleared the Natural Resources Committee and will soon go to the floor of the House for passage. CLEAR is a broad policy-setting and resource-managing piece of legislation that will impact much more than it is currently billed, which is addressing the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Many sections of the cobbled together bill are totally unrelated to the spill, reaching instead into consolidation of Federal land and mineral management, and contains new mandatory unrelated spending of over $40 billion.

More frightening than the money being spent are the proposals that, once in place, would have no congressional over site, and would rely on appointed bureaucrats to administer, broadly and at their discretion. CLEAR would establish a host of new bureaucracies and smaller bureaucracies within these larger ones to replace the scandal plagued Department of Interior drilling office:

Bureau of Energy and Resource Management (BERM) -- to “manage the leasing and permitting for renewable energy, non-renewable energy, and mineral resources on all onshore and offshore Federal lands,” through a BERM Director appointed by the President, subject to Senate confirmation;

Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) -- to “carry out all the safety and environmental regulatory activities, including inspections, on all onshore and offshore Federal lands in the United States,” having a Director to be appointed by the President and subject to Senate confirmation;

Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) -- with the responsibility “for collecting and disbursing all royalties and other revenues from energy and mineral related activities on onshore and offshore Federal lands, auditing such collections, and promulgating regulations relevant to revenue collection and management.”

By creating these new Interior agencies via law, the federal government is placing itself as ruler of all land, mineral, natural resource, and aquatic management. An attempt was made to strip the legislation to retain just the oil spill portion, but it was defeated by democrats on a 17 to 21 vote; renewable Energy, Onshore Energy Development, Aquaculture, Uranium Leasing, and Wildlife Sustainability provisions and master plans remain in the bill.

Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Texas) addressed Congress on July 15 claiming the bill contains plans for more federal land acquisitions. Gohmert said the federal government is set to spend $900 million per year, a 190 percent increase, to purchase private land over the next 30 years. The government already owns about 30 percent of land in America, most in the Western states. Gohmert decried this trend, especially in this time of severe economic deficits and debt.

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) brought to light the fact that America’s Wildlife Heritage Act, which had no of chance of passing and wouldn’t stand the light of examination or debate, is now Section 238 of H.R. 3534, “the kind of abuse of process by this Congress that the American people are growing increasingly disgusted with,” he said.

Much land, water and resources will simply be placed out of the reach of businesses, energy companies and entrepreneurs, stifling and strangling any new expansion of jobs, while the over-regulation, royalty payments, and fines for noncompliance will discourage if not make it nigh impossible for any company to operate under. Marketwire reported on a shareholders report from Rothman Research that says the bill will force oil and gas companies to adhere to “best management practices,” requiring technologies and approaches that are high in cost, while at the same time demanding information on the chemical compounds used in drilling which the industry says are proprietary. They termed the legislation the “End of an Era of Laissez-Faire Attitude in Oil & Gas Industry.”

Some companies already operating in the Gulf of Mexico would be blocked from winning new federal leases unless they agree to new royalty limits in existing leases, a game changer in the middle of the game, to be sure.

When the mainstream media slathers the airwaves and the Internet with articles on how this legislation will keep another oil spill disaster from occurring, and how important its conservation elements are, don’t you believe it. This massive bill is an unconstitutional grab by the federal government in order to have complete authority over all forestry, wildlife, land and natural resources. Certainly more precious resources used in many different industries will be locked up and land use restricted even to tourism, due to this proposal that calls for federally-approved leasing rights and licenses plus royalties, preventing energy independence and real prosperity and wealth. This could increase dependence on sources outside the United States, and cause widespread increases in the cost of said natural resources, particularly uranium.

Send your representatives a communiqué on how you feel about this latest land and resource grab by the federal government, knowing that radical environmental groups are pushing madly to get CLEAR passed in the House.

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Bad Time To Be LOST

By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

This week, the Obama administration will roll out its big guns in support of President Obama’s latest assault on American sovereignty and security interests: The UN Law of the Sea Treaty (better known as LOST).

Of course, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, they will appear to be talking about another accord altogether – one that strengthens our sovereignty and is deemed by the U.S. military to be essential to our security.

So, which is it?

The proponents are hoping that senators, on and off the Foreign Relations panel, will do what they did during what passed for their chamber’s consideration of the New START Treaty in 2010: Take the administration’s word for it; be impressed by the pro-treaty testimonials and lobbying of an array of former eminences and special interests; and largely dispense with the serious scrutiny and check-and-balance vetting the framers had in mind when they entrusted to the Senate the constitutional responsibility to advise and consent to treaties.

If, on the other hand, the members of the U.S. Senate trouble themselves to study, or at least read, the text of the Law of the Sea Treaty, they will immediately see it for what it really is: a diplomatic dinosaur, a throwback to a bygone era when UN negotiations were dominated by communists of the Soviet Union and their fellow-travelers in the Third World.

These adversaries’ agenda was transparent and wholly inimical to American equities. They sought to:

• Establish control over 70% of the world’s surface;
• Create an international governing institution that would serve as a model for bringing nation states like ours to heel; and
• Redistribute the planet’s wealth and technology from the developed world to themselves.

LOST codifies such arrangements – and would subject us to mandatory dispute resolution to enforce them via stacked-deck adjudication panels
Fortunately, even if Senators are disinclined to go to school on what the Law of the Sea Treaty entails – and why it cannot possibly serve even the parochial interests of the U.S. Navy or oil and gas industries whose willfully blind support will be much in evidence in the ratification campaign ahead – others are doing their homework. Such efforts are likely to make the timing of the Obama administration’s current quest, shall we say, most inopportune.

First, Dick Morris and his wife, Eileen McGann, have just published an important new book that addresses, among other outrages, LOST as a prime example of the title: Screwed! How Foreign Countries are Ripping off America and Plundering our Economy – and How our Leaders Help Them Do It.

Second, Glenn Beck – whose predicted demise as an influential broadcaster with his departure from Fox has proven, thankfully, to be premature – did yeoman work educating the American people about LOST in 2007, the last time a push was made to ensnare us in this accord.

In his new and wildly successful reincarnation as a pioneer of internet subscription-based television, Mr. Beck stands to be even more effective in connecting the dots for his audience, and engaging them in opposing LOST.

Third, on June 1st, theaters nationwide will begin showing a documentary by Ami Horowitz called “U N Me” that uses Michael Moore-style humor and intrepid camera-work to lay waste to the United Nations as a corrupt, self-dealing, incompetent and fundamentally anti-American institution.

It is hard to believe that anyone who sees this film will want to entrust any more resources, legitimacy or responsibility to such an organization – or to its subsidiaries like LOST’s International Seabed Authority, the Orwellian-named “Enterprise,” the Law of the Sea Tribunal, the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, etc.As it happens, even before such important forces are brought fully to bear in opposition to Team Obama’s bid to ram through the Senate this “constitution of the oceans,” the ratification bandwagon hit something of a roadblock.

At the initiative of freshman Representative John Duncan (R-Tennessee) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who chairs the House Republican Study Committee, the House of Representatives last Friday voted 229-193 to bar millions of dollars the administration had sought to contribute to the funding of LOST organizations. This is the first time either chamber has formally voted in opposition to this agreement and is a salutary shot across the bow of its proponents.

One other factor that should prove problematic in terms of the timing of President Obama’s effort to foist LOST on the American people is that it comes amidst an election in which his presumptive Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, is no fan of this accord.

According to an October 2007 report, a spokesman declared that “Governor Romney has concerns with the Law of the Sea Treaty. He believes giving unaccountable international institutions more power is a serious problem.”

[vector7]

May 23, 2012 2:28 PM
Military leaders, Clinton push for sea treaty


U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the closing of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue at the Diaoyutai Guesthouse in Beijing on May 4, 2012. (MARK RALSTON/AFP/GettyImages)

(AP) WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the nation's top military leaders pleaded Wednesday for Senate approval of a long-spurned high seas treaty, arguing that the pact will boost U.S. national security and create much-needed American jobs.

In a rare joint appearance before Congress, Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, made the case for the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was concluded in 1982 and has been in force since 1994.

Republican opposition has stalled the pact for years and was on bold display at the hearing. The United States is the only major nation that has refused to sign the treaty, which has been endorsed by 161 countries and the European Union.

"We need to get off the sidelines and start taking advantage of the great deal that the Convention offers the United States and our business community," Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

In an impassioned plea, Clinton dismissed opposition to the pact as based on "ideology and mythology" and pointed out that the treaty has the backing of Republican and Democratic presidents, including former President George W. Bush; businesses, the energy and shipping industry and environmental groups.

She pointed out that U.S. oil and gas companies now have the technology to explore the extended continental shelf, which could be more than one and half the size of Texas and rich in resources. Those companies, however, are seeking the greatest legal certainty from the treaty before investing millions.

Point by point, she refuted the criticism of the treaty, such as concerns that it is a U.N. pact.

"That means the black helicopters are on their way," she said of the unfounded fear.

She pleaded with lawmakers to listen to businesses, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the military, strong proponents of the pact. "The cost of not joining is increasing," she said.

Military leaders past and present contend that the treaty would strengthen U.S. naval power, giving Americans favorable navigational rights and the freedom to use military force, if necessary. Among those are the right of transit through international straits and the right of passage through foreign territorial seas.

"Joining the convention would provide us another way to stave off conflict with less risk of escalation," Dempsey told the committee.

Panetta pointed out that the United States has one of the longest coastlines, the largest extended continental shelf and has more to gain from approval of the treaty than any other country.

"If we are not at the table, then who will defend our interests?" Panetta asked.

The treaty has languished for years due to opposition from those who it would undermine U.S. sovereignty, and in recent months challenges from tea party Republicans. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, acknowledged the difficulty in moving the treaty, especially in an election year. He announced at the start of the hearing that he would not push for a Senate vote before the November elections.

But he insisted that approval of the treaty is necessary because the United States "has lived by the rules, but we don't shape the rules."

Kerry cast the issue in terms of the U.S. losing out to growing military powers China and Russia, which is claiming oil and other resources in the Arctic.

The treaty has exposed divisions within the Republican Party. Pro-business groups led by the Chamber strongly support ratification of the pact while tea partyers argue against it. The fracture was evident last week when House Republicans, ignoring the pleas of the Chamber, voted to limit funds for enforcement of the treaty as part of a far-reaching defense bill.

Conservative Republicans expressed the strongest opposition to the pact, arguing that it would force the United States to redistribute wealth through royalties from offshore drilling and impose regulations on greenhouse gases.

"This treaty would subordinate American sovereignty to the United Nations, impose an international tax on U.S. energy production that would raise costs for American families, and act as a backdoor Kyoto Protocol that could allow foreign nations to regulate U.S. energy emissions," Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said in a statement.

Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said the high-seas treaty has "Kyoto written all over it."

Twenty-six Republican senators have signed a letter circulated by DeMint vowing to oppose the treaty if it gets to the Senate for a vote. The senators said in the letter that they are "particularly concerned that United States sovereignty could be subjugated in many areas" to an authority representing various countries.

"By its current terms, the Law of the Sea Convention encompasses economic and technology interests in the deep sea, redistribution of wealth from developed to undeveloped nations, freedom of navigation in the deep sea and exclusive economic zones which may impact maritime security, and environmental regulation over virtually all sources of pollution," the senators wrote.

[Malsua]

What a deal. We give the UN "mineral rights" to the 70% of the planet by which we then have to pay royalties.

Personally I like to be kissed first.

[Ryan Ruck]

Maybe a nice candle lit dinner too...

[American Patriot]

Better be something endangered and grilled for dinner....