Wasting Billions on the Green Agenda
By Alan Caruba

It is just mind-boggling the considering the billions of taxpayer dollars that are squandered annually in the name of "protecting the environment." These millions and billions are not spent to just on the US environment, they are just as often given way to foreign nations, many of which simply use the funds to enrich their corrupt politicians.

These thoughts were generated by reading a speech given in Stockholm, Sweden by John F. Turner, an Assistant Secretary for Oceans and International Environment and Scientific Affairs. If Turner were any more Green he'd glow in the dark. He is not alone. Greens are everywhere in the government, having been first attracted by fellow travelers like Al Gore and Bill Clinton. They are everywhere in Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior, and, like Turner, even in the State Department.

The title of his speech was "Uncle Sam: An Environmentalist." Who can argue with that? Easily a third or more of all federal laws and regulations are devoted to the environment. This involvement was accomplished in a relatively short time, just since the first Earth Day in 1970. It was a Republican President, Richard M. Nixon, who signed into law the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and arguably one of the worst pieces of environmental legislation, the Endangered Species Act.

Turner proudly told his colleagues in Stockholm that the federal government owns 84.5 million acres as a national park system and manages 460 million acres as wildlife reserves, refuges, wilderness areas, and marine sanctuaries. Americans who live in the West know well how much land the US owns, which often amounts to a large majority of land in their states. But most Americans remain unaware of the massive involvement of the federal government, using taxpayer dollars in purchasing and regulating more and more private property.

The US government and environmental and conservation organizations are using your money! To assure there will be fewer and fewer places for people to live, create new businesses, ranch, farm, or use our natural resources in any fashion, i.e. mine it, drill for it, or log it, without the government's permission. This is what the Greens call "sustainable development." If they were honest about it---which they never are---they should call it "no development."

The Bush administration has a program called the Congo Basin Forest Partnership. "The United States will contribute $53 million over four years to create the training programs, infrastructure, and management and enforcement regimes necessary to make the vision of a system of protected areas a success," said Turner. He bragged that, "In total, we have the potential of developing as many as 27 national parks and protecting more than 10 million hectares" in the African Congo with American taxpayer resources!

The US, noted Turner, will let some countries reduce their debt by agreeing to "protect valuable tropical forests" in return. Peru, for example, won't have to pay what it owes us in return for preserving 12.5 million hectares of rain forest. What Turner doesn't mention is that logging is one of the few ways Peruvians have of making a living and depriving them of that, much as was done to many American logging communities in our Northwestern States, will destroy an important element of that nation's economy.

It was a long speech filled with similar examples where American tax dollars either are paid out or foreign debt to us is just written off in the name of saving the environment. And then politicians ask why this nation has a huge deficit? Money that should be used to support our military or returned to the States to build highways, renovate old schools, fix up local parks and recreation areas, fix sewage systems, and so much more is going to the Congo and who knows where else!

Turner even had kind words for the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Control, otherwise known as the global warming treaty. Mind you, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution rejecting it. Clinton never even submitted it for consideration, and President Bush called it "seriously flawed" because of its bogus science.

But John F. Turner of the US Department of State told his audience that "We remain active in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and support its ultimate goal: the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate." Is that now the policy of the United States? If so, Congress and White House have not told us yet.

Turner did tell us "the United States has cemented 13 formal bilateral relationships with both developed and developing nation to address climate change." And, "What's more, the US spends $1.7 billion annually on climate science and related science, more than the rest of the world combined."

"Over the next five years, the United States has pledged $1.7 billion to develop clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles." That's billion with a "B" for an automobile that nobody wants, nor needs.

The waste of tax dollars in the name of the environment is beyond comprehension. But it illustrates just how full the federal government is of both legislators and civil servants who feel free to ignore the will of the people and the best interests of Americans to a prosperous and truly sustainable future based on property rights and human freedom

Alan Caruba writes "Warning Signs", a weekly commentary posted on www.anxietycenter.com, the website of The National Anxiety Center.