Obama plans massive land grab

Obama is determined to pay back environmentalists in whatever way possible. Now the greens are getting the ultimate reward from the president: lots and lots of land, snatched up from private citizens.

Often, presidents will set aside a portion of land as a national monument by executive order, a power given to them under the 1906 Antiquities Act. These land grabs are always controversial and probably unconstitutional, but no one's gotten around to fixing the law yet. In 1996, Bill Clinton outraged the nation when he announced the creation of the 1.7 million acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. There was no congressional vote and the good people of Utah weren't consulted.

Now comes word that Obama might create not just one, but fourteen new national monuments. Their creation would require huge amounts of land in nine states: California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. This land grab would affect thirteen million acres, more than eleven million more than got Clinton in so much trouble. Think about it: Obama is planning to take sizable chunks of land in the West and declare them the property of the federal government, by fiat. If the fourteen sites are taken at once, it would be the largest land grab in American history.

And in what must be a huge coincidence, several of the sites are home to large oil and natural gas deposits. The Otero Mesa in New Mexico is believed to hide large amounts of natural gas. The San Rafael Swell in Utah is already home to dozens of oil and gas fields. And Montana's Northern Prarie is one of the oldest gas fields in the state. If Obama invokes the Antiquities Act, all drilling would be banned at these sites. The economic impact could be devastating.

But that's Obama's M.O. after all: Use whatever powers he has to stop fossil fuels from being produced while throwing away money on windmills.

Naturally the Obama administration is trying to keep this a secret. We only know about it because of a memo leaked from the Department of the Interior. In a desperate attempt to stop the president, Sen. Jim DeMint rushed an amendment to the Senate floor that would block Obama's theft. The amendment was voted down along party lines.

Watch DeMint railing against the president and note how others in the chamber keep talking over him.

It's inappropriate that we call these lands "monuments" because monuments are testaments to greatness. And this isn't about American greatness, it's about environmental delusions. If Obama claims this land, it will stop ranching, mining, energy production, and numerous other cogs in America's engine. People will lose their jobs, their property, and their freedom. Their travel will be restricted. Sounds more like a dictatorship.