We are in the middle of the biggest campaign of my lifetime. In the past couple of weeks, meetings have finally come back, and folks are showing up demanding solutions.
The term “30 x 30” has garnered a tremendous amount of attention and rightfully so. For those that are not aware, on Jan. 27, 2021, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad and if you have not read the entire document, I would strongly recommend it. Word of warning: it took me an hour and a half to read the entire 57-page document. For the most part, it explains how we will move away from fossil fuels but also says we will move into 30% of land and water in the nation being used to mitigate climate change by the year 2030. For the record, this madness was previously known as Agenda 21 and Agenda 30 is now officially 30 x 30 until they bump it to 50 x 50.
First, let’s just do a little refresher course on the ownership status of land in this country. Currently, 28% of the United States land mass is owned by the federal government and 4.5% is owned by state governments. My math says that 1 in 3 acres of land in the United States is already owned by the government. To be very clear, the executive order of Jan. 27, says 30% by 2030, but it also says that the Department of Interior, in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture, has 90 days to design a plan and report back to the White House on how this would be implemented. It is also clear that their intended plan does not include the land they currently own but rather the land that you and I own.
I have had far too many folks share with me common myths about these land grab concepts that are simply not true. Some say, “We don’t have any federal land in our county so this doesn’t apply to us.” Not true. Again, this is not about the land it owns, this is about the land you own that it wants to control.
One tool that will be used in this land grab is the National Heritage Area designation. In the past two weeks, many of you attended information meetings about the proposed NHA that encompasses 22 million acres in north central Kansas and south central Nebraska. These programs are not new; this one was created in 1984 as a means to achieving public or private partnerships that would “preserve” a “heritage area” for tourism or other recreational uses. Today, there are 55 such designations around the country and the acceleration seems to be rapid.
You may choose to enter into a conservation easement and place your land management options in someone else’s hands for perpetuity but with heritage designations, that choice is made for you. On top of that, they don’t pay you anything, you still own the land and pay the taxes on it but you are restricted in what you can do with it. You may be limited if something you want to do potentially violates someone else’s “viewshed.”
Every single day for the past two weeks, I have had some form of communication with a county official about the lurking dangers of this land grab. This leads me to the only logical conclusion and solution to address this problem: local government.
While NHA does require federal approval, we know better now than at any time in history that local decisions must rule.
The answer is not hard to determine here. The Constitution gives us a very clear direction on this matter. The county government is the ultimate control on the matter unless it forfeits the rights to a higher government.
Get the facts, get your neighbors, and get to your county officials.
Editor’s note: Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.LoosTales.com, or email Trent at [email protected].