My Letter to House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo:
 
Opposition to H.R. 822, the Wild Sky Wilderness Act of 2003
 
July 16, 2004
 
To: House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo
 
 
From: Miss Julie Kay Smithson 
 
 
Subject: Opposition to H.R. 822, the Wild Sky Wilderness Act of 2003
 
Chairman Pombo:
 
My concerns are not listed necessarily in order of personal importance; rather, they are simply what comes to mind when I consider the far-reaching implications -- one might even call them tentacles -- of H.R. 822. This bill truly reaches into the pocketbook of every taxpaying American, every consumer, every tourist, and extracts something, whether tangible or not. Every concern I have relating to this bill bodes ill for it. It MUST, for to support any part of it is to disenfranchise myself from all that I cherish about my country.
 
Your 1996 book, coauthored with Joseph Farah, titled "This Land is Our Land", details "how to end the war on private property." I'm sure you cherish the lands that you and your family have owned for many generations in and near Tracy, California.
 
Wherever there is federal lust for more and more and more land and resources
 to remove from the tax rolls, further encumbering the already overburdened American taxpayer -- and ever more often also seeking removal from the public access -- you have my attention. These lands are lands that someone cherishes. Often, these families have lived, like your own family, for multiple generations on the same lands, working at the same honest work, in a committed and long-term partnership with the lands and waters. Whether that relationship -- granted, built upon trial and error, for that is the way mankind learns how better to steward his Genesis-mandated job over all the earth -- is based in farming, timber harvest, ranching, mineral extraction, fishing, or other responsible use, it is something that many Americans and their families have diligently invested blood, sweat and tears equity in.
 
Many of these same families now find themselves at the merciless hands of those professing to be 'environmentalists' or 'conservationists' -- when the truth is, those using those terms care little about either the environment or real conservation, which means not wasting.
 
It does not mean NOT USING AT ALL.
 
That is what "wilderness designation" is, Chairman Pombo.
 
It means NOT USING AT ALL: none of the resources.
 
The 'carrot' on the stick that is promised is cursory passive recreational access, while the stick lies in wait to 'assist' those that have become, through no fault of their own, inholders. One way or another, they are to become "willing sellers". This is an ugly, dishonest way to treat American property rights -- and you wrote a book about it, so few should know this as well as you and Joseph Farah.
 
As one who has recreated in most of America's contiguous states, from horseback riding to walking, and from nature photography to snowmobiling, I have comments on H.R. 822 that reflect an aging baby boomer tourist's interests. I cherish access to lands that my taxpayer dollars have paid for.
 
As one who has traveled most of America's contiguous states in a twenty-seven year and 3.1 million mile safe driving career as a truck driver, I have comments on H.R. 822 that relate to both America's economy and to access issues. The area targeted by H.R. 822 contains roads -- because it is an area utilized by people. It is not as it was before Christopher Columbus set his booted foot upon our shores on a day in 1492. That in itself should raise a raft of Red Flags -- that anyone would pick, out of thin air, after all the millennia and various 'settlement' by various 'ethnicities' -- 'pre-European settlement' or 'pre-Columbian settlement' as the magic date before which time all must be 'restored.' Hogwash and balderdash, say I! I cherish and appreciate American grown and mined products
and those that work so hard within my own country to see that such renewable bounty is available to me and mine, and I believe with every fiber of my being that using our own resources responsibly -- not becoming a 'third world nation' by default, through the hidden horrors of global 'free trade' that is neither fair nor trade, but is in reality the wholesale and wanton destruction of our Constitutional Republic and our sovereignty -- is TRUE 'sustainability.' We used to call it being responsible, being self-sufficient. It made us great. We need to remember what made us great and stop apologizing for it. Let us use our own resources, within our own sovereign borders, and that means NO MORE WILDERNESS DESIGNATIONS: not ONE SQUARE INCH MORE, and over time, a LOT of acres LESS of such areas. I don't tout developing all of America, but our natural resources are OURS, to be used responsibly and intelligently, but to be USED. They belong to no one else, despite the hoopla -- other than whatever deals may have been agreed to without our public knowledge. Thank God we have Marbury v. Madison (1803): All laws repugnant to the [US] Constitution are null and void. This includes all treaties and 'dark of night', closed-door dirty deals to use our American resources -- including our American human resources -- as collateral.
 
As a property rights researcher, I have comments on H.R. 822 that relate to all the facets of responsible resource providing -- i.e., property rights and freedom. You have just read them.
 
As a rural homeowner, I have comments on H.R. 822 that relate to the increased and very real threat of wildfires and other emergency services that are put directly in harm's way by such proposals for increased "wilderness designations." There is nothing in such "wilderness designations" that is of any benefit to "future generations" -- whatever that means. Future generations of what? Of who? Certainly "future generations" does not mean middle-class, hardworking Americans, who even now are being charged double -- in both taxes AND in FEES to enter, park at and use our own federal parks and other areas. This is criminal -- there was a tea party held in Boston Harbor over such things, many years ago -- but that is a matter for another letter and another time.
 
As a taxpayer, I have comments on H.R. 822 that relate to the ever-increasing burden -- much of it Constitutionally illegal -- on American taxpayers, and the added burden inflicted on us with every acre that is removed from the tax rolls. We need bear no more -- we should and we MUST bear much less. The obesity mentioned among legislators has nothing to do with physical poundage. There is a massive cancer of out-of-control lust for power and money that will never be sated so long as there is unlimited access to American taxpayers' pocketbooks. Terrible as it may sound, the deals cut in D.C. have been the main contributors to each and every one of my comments and concerns.
 
America is beautiful and America is The Beautiful, but what is being done by using the stalking horse of "wilderness designation", like the hideous and many-headed Medusa of the Endangered Species Act, which a member of your committee will chair a meeting about in Klamath Falls, Oregon, in a few short hours, is neither Constitutional nor American. It is criminal, and should be handcuffed and incarcerated wherever bad legislation goes when it is proven harmful to America and to Americans.
 
Thank you, Chairman Pombo. I will be watching this bill and the actions of the House Resources Committee closely, knowing that you will have intense lobbying by non-governmental organizations pushing you to run this bill through.
 
As it is part of a true statesman's character to disallow that which is wrong, I hope you will look to the Congressman from Colorado, Tom Tancredo, and the standards he has set regarding sovereignty and borders and Illegal Aliens, and take all that is good from his shining example, to apply to these 'pieces of work' like H.R. 822. To have such courage and moral fiber as he is to be -- like former Congresswoman from Idaho, Helen Chenoweth-Hage -- a true statesman. We need more like this, Congressman Pombo, on that I believe we can agree. You have shown promise in this regard. Perhaps my letter to you will help nourish that spark and fan it into a flame that the most determined "wilderness proponent" cannot squelch. I pray so.
 
'Nuff said.
 
Miss Julie Kay Smithson
 
213 Thorn Locust Lane
 
London, Ohio 43140-8844
 
740-857-1239 (voice/no fax)