The giant Borganism that is the federal government has a built-in bias to stick its tentacles into every orifice of the body politic, gathering more money, power and influence to itself in stark defiance of the Founder’s blueprints for a weak federal government checked by strong state and citizen sovereignty. In addition to money and power, it also wants to gobble up land, and now it wants to eat 700,000 acres of private land on Texas-New Mexico border.
Under the guise of “land protection,” the federal government aims to acquire 700,000 acres of private land in the Southern High Plains region—which sits along the Texas-New Mexico border.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently finalized its Land Protection Plan. The plan aims to acquire 700,000 acres of privately owned land and put it under federal control for “protection” in “perpetuity.” This is part of the federal government’s efforts to expand the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge—which feeds into the broader aim of the Biden administration: fulfilling the “30×30” initiative.
Through the “30×30” initiative, the Biden administration decided that 30 percent of the nation’s land and waters must be under federal control and management by 2030. President Biden launched the agenda via Executive Order 14008 on January 27, 2021.
However, American Stewards of Liberty explains that the initiative was rebranded as “America the Beautiful” after facing public backlash.
As the American Stewards highlight, the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge is attempting to expand the “acquisition boundary” from 6,440 acres in Texas and New Mexico to 7,000,000 acres—all without congressional authority. After they acquire more land, they plan to federalize 700,000 acres through buying the land or obtaining permanent conservation easements.
“Federally acquiring nearly three-quarter million acres from this region is a direct attack on the oil, gas, and mineral industries, agriculture production, and local economies,” the American Stewards write.
They also claim counties were not notified of the expansion.
“No direct notice was given to the counties or local governing authorities. The USFWS [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service] failed to coordinate this plan with the local governments as required by law.”
The expanded area grabs land in 15 Texas counties including Bailey, Castro, Cochran, Crosby, Dawson, Gaines, Garza, Hale, Hockley, Lamb, Lubbock, Lynn, Parmer, Terry, and Yoakum. The expansion into five counties in New Mexico includes land from Chaves, Curry, De Baca, Lea, and Roosevelt counties.
If you look at a map of the proposed takings, you can see federal environmentalists want to “conserve” (i.e. control) land rightup to the edge of Lubbock:
Both this plan and the 30×30 plan in general smack of the sort of unauthorized, self-directed bureaucratic empire-building that the Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision struck down. Both private land owners and the State of Texas should resist this blatant land grab with all the tools at their disposal.
Tags: Bailey County, Castro County, Cochran County, Crosby County, Dawson County, Democrats, environmentalism, Fish and Wildlife Service, Gaines County, Garza County, Hale County, Hockley County, Lamb County, Lubbock, Lubbock County, Lynn County, Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge, natural gas, New Mexico, oil industry, Parmer County, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Takings, Terry County, Texas, Yoakum County
They wouldn’t want this land without reason. Make ’em pay, big. A price bigger than they can handle.
Or, just leave it at “no”.
Related: see this CGP Grey video about “federal land”. Amazingly, many states in the western half of the USA control only a fraction of their own land – D.C. controls giant bites of each of them.
https://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/what-is-federal-land
The map really puts it in stark contrast.
This sure looks like a finger in they eye of US Senator Ted Cruz, who with libertarian-leaning Rand Paul have been supportive of the American Lands Council’s vision of local control of wildlife resources.
You would think that the success spawned by the Sagebrush Rebellion during the Reagan years would have built a bulwark against further fedgov land grabs.
I would allow said entity to have only enough state lands to enable the establishment of Courts, Ports and Forts pursuant to the goal of national defense and the Common Welfare.
Everything else would be clawed back and made the property of the several states with the understanding that land sales will resume in accordance with the old homesteading laws.
The net result would be a population shift out of the coastal cities and political control being redistributed to the heartland. This would break the back of the Coastal Elite and ensure a populist future for many generations.
[…] GRAB: Feds Want To Eat 700,000 Acres of Texas/New Mexico Land. “Both this plan and the 30×30 plan in general smack of the sort of unauthorized, […]
Eminent domain was never delegated to the feds. They lied, the courts too, about the feds having such authority. The States would NEVER allow such power. In fact, the constitution requires the feds to purchase land for buildings proves the fact that the feds do not have any eminent domain.
The constitution doesn’t give the federal government the power to establish parks or reserve lands as they are not “needful buildings”, nor are they the enumerated list of lands the US federal gov is allowed to own.
The same thing, only on a much, MUCH larger scale, would be needed if anyone built a border wall.
A border wall would require massive land-taking by the federal government, massive eminent domain against privately owned land.
Why do the same people who excoriate THIS massive land grab implicitly endorse the even more massive land grab a border wall would entail?
Just when you need the same crew that protected Cliven Bundy from the Federalees…
I grew up just outside of the northern edge of this map. I spent almost all of my adult lifetime less than a 100 miles outside the bottom of this map. I would just say this: any Fish and Wildlife personnel who wanted to go out and administrate this vast tract would need to travel in heavily armored vehicles with at least a platoon of soldiers in accompanying armored vehicles and overhead surveillance. Elsewise they’d find their corpses feeding the buzzards as if they were Buffalo Soldiers hunting Comanches 175 years ago.
Texas and New Mexico are divided by a state line, not a border. They share the international border between the USA and Mexico. Precision is important.
“Why do the same people who excoriate THIS massive land grab implicitly endorse the even more massive land grab a border wall would entail?”
First, because the land needed for building and securing a wall isn’t really the “massive” land grab you make it out to be. It’s a long and thin grab.
Second, because securing the border has obvious relevancy for securing the nation, whereas this is just warm and fuzzy “protect the environment” via government that has questionable-at-best ability to actually do so, while not-so-questionable ability to screw over private individuals, time and time again.
Third, “build the wall” isn’t necessarily something literal — a good portion of limiting immigration came from just making it less desirable for people to come and stay here illegally.
On Cardano’s comment on a border wall: I think the border wall falls in the category of a military fortification and thus would be a “needful building.”
“Making them pay” a heavy price for the land is not the answer. The people who proposed this need to be fired, immediately, with suitable prosecution for violating their oaths and attempting to steal the property of U.S. citizens. They should also be fined fair market value (to be paid from the personal assets of the miscreants, up to the limit of leaving them a car to live in and all the personal gear they can fit in it) for the land they attempted to seize.
“Feds Want To Eat 700,000 Acres”
Eat? How much volume are we talking about: the top inch of the ground, or more? Any government official willing to munch on topsoil is a proper nematode, and work w/o pay.
I wonder how much land Texas has taken using eminent domain since the export of LNG was approved in 2015? I’m betting it’s close to 200,000 to 300,000 acres all across Texas so far and more are being approved every day. We’ve lost 50 acres just on us and more are surveying. Texas legislators love eminent domain and have made laws preventing landowners from even being able to negotiate.
More specifically, it falls under the Federal governments Article IV responsibilities to “protect each of the states from invasion.”
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