WASHINGTON - Kicking off their “Great American Giveaway" week, House Republicans today passed a dangerous public lands bill that includes dangerous anti-immigrant provisions while attacking America’s environment, forests, and wildlife. The bill, H.R. 2578, passed the House by a 232-188 vote. Nineteen Republicans voted against the bill.
The centerpiece of the bill is a section authored by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) which would exempt DHS from more than a dozen U.S. laws that protect American citizens from pollution, land rights, religious freedom, and other liberties and protections to create a 100-mile “Operational Control Zone" for the Department of Homeland Security on federal lands. It would expand out to 100 miles the area where DHS can use drones to conduct surveillance on our citizens, and represents a new front opened by Republicans in their war on immigrants.
The Natural Resources Democrats today launched a new website called DRONEZONE which allows Americans to look at national, state and even Congressional district maps to see if they live or could potentially visit this expanded DHS patrol area.
The bill also includes a provision to permit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to shoot sea lions in the Columbia River for eating salmon; hands over prime sections of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska to a Native corporation for timber exports; reduces protections for endangered turtles and other wildlife in Cape Hatteras National Seashore; and several other provisions that would irresponsibly handle America’s public lands.
“Whether it’s creating a 100-mile drone zone for DHS, chopping down Alaskan forests, or authorizing firing squads for sea lions, this is a dangerous bill that fortunately died as soon as it passed," said Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the Ranking Member of the Natural Resources Committee. “Instead of working to pass a DREAM Act to help solve the immigration challenge, House Republicans instead want to create a nightmare scenario at our borders and on our public lands."
“This is theater of the absurd," said Rep. Raul Grijalva, the Ranking Member of the National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee. “Republicans have wanted to gut these laws for decades, and each excuse seems to get a little flimsier. They’re not afraid to invent new reasons to get their way, and when those run out they just use the old ones again. The days of scaring everyone by shouting ‘national security’ are long over, and Republicans would do everyone a favor by admitting it."
Republicans voted down several amendments offered by Democrats that would have eliminated the creation of a 100-mile “Operational Control Zone" for DHS, to create a pilot program to study how to provide taxpayers with a better rate of return for grazing on public lands, and to ban the export of American timber to China and other countries if the Tongass National Forest is opened to more timber harvest.
