Ever since Joe Biden has been president, the West and its agriculture industry have been threatened and under attack – maybe not as threatened as the energy industry has, that is, up until lately.
The issues started almost immediately after his inauguration, as his appointments took place at their desks. Most were noted to not be so friendly to agriculture, specifically towards public lands grazing and livestock production.
The first slam was Biden’s 30x30 Plan, in which he wants to conserve 30 percent of the nation’s land by 2030. Of course, most of these lands happen to be in the West because of its public lands and lower populations.
After the announcement, the White House went quiet as concerns were raised.
We now realize a trait of this administration is to announce a program and release the details months later. The major problem with this is the administration develops all of these plans without any input from those who are going to be involved or affected. Then, they have a short comment period and the plan becomes official.
We have seen this strategy time and time again. It happened when they made conservation a “use” on public lands a few months ago. With this program, organizations or individuals could lease public lands for conservation and who knows what will happen with the land.
I would like to know if I could lease the public lands I graze on for “conservation” and improve them with government money. I may not have to deal with all of the hoops that tie us up for months with the environmental assessment.
The Biden administration has joined 12 other nations around the world in an agreement to crack down on the agriculture industry to fight global warming. These international governments have agreed to sign a pact pledging to target food production by shutting down farms, ranches and other livestock facilities to reduce methane emissions.
There was no discussion with the affected industries before the pledge was signed. The same can be said for the announcement of eliminating gas cooking ranges and stoves from our homes and businesses, which just happened. In a few months, we can expect them to release their plan on how they will do it – we need to be careful.
There is talk of Biden receiving pressure to enact COVID-19-like lockdowns for climate change. He can declare a climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act to expand the president’s power to implement these lockdown measures without the public’s feedback. This comes at a time when 1,600 scientists declared climate change is not an emergency.
Seven months ago, the Department of Interior announced they had allocated $25 million through the Inflation Reduction Act to explore restoration of bison over an area yet to be defined.
Low and behold, a Cowboy State Daily article came out this past week about a Montana congressman calling for transparency of the plan to expand bison on public lands in the West. So far it is another Biden plan held in secret.
I think Biden’s actions are pure socialism. I know I don’t fully understand socialism, but I do know these actions without Congressional input and public comment from those affected is not the American way.
Dennis Sun is the publisher of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup, a weekly agriculture newspaper available in print and online. To subscribe, visit wylr.net.
