(PresidentialWire.com)- A week after his Inauguration, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 14008, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad.” Buried within this order are two paragraphs that stunned more than a dozen US Governors – among them Governor Pete Ricketts of Nebraska.
The paragraphs in question task the Administration to determine how “to achieve the goal of conserving at least 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030.” Currently about 12 percent of American land and water is in conservation. According to Ricketts, to increase that to 30 percent, an area of land roughly the size of Nebraska would have to be added every year for the next nine years.
Last month, Governor Ricketts signed an executive order opposing the plan and is asking the administration to provide more information, “because their math doesn’t work.”
Ricketts believes the administration either set itself up to fail to get to 30 percent, or they aren’t being forthcoming about how they plan to get there.
Among other measures, Ricketts’ executive order prohibits Nebraska’s state government from supporting federal conservation programs without the governor’s express authorization.
In April, Ricketts, along with 14 other governors, sent a letter to the Biden Administration requesting more details on the plan, pointing out that the federal government has no authority to unilaterally seize land for conservation.
Central to their concern is a seizure of this magnitude would no doubt result in “infringing on the private property rights of our citizens and significantly harming our economies,” the letter states.
Thus far, these governors have received no response from the Biden Administration.
In May the Departments of Interior, Agriculture and Commerce, along with the President’s Council on Environmental Quality, released a preliminary report ostensibly outlining how the 30 percent by 2030 would be achieved. However, the 24-page report is just as lacking in specifics as the initial executive order. What’s more, the report fails to even define what the administration means by “conservation.”
Instead the report suggests that this lofty “30 x 30” plan can be achieved without new laws and on a voluntary basis, by “using the wide array of existing tools and strategies,” while taking into consideration local input. But, Governor Ricketts pointed out, it was under these existing tools and strategies that the US has only achieved 12 percent conservation.
Ricketts wants to know how specifically does the administration plan to boost that to 30 percent in just ten years.
Governor Ricketts has called on Nebraska residents to support members of Congress who push back against Biden’s “30 x 30” plan. He also urged local officials to pass resolutions opposing the plan.
Currently, 97 percent of Nebraska land is privately owned. Ricketts said that subjecting 30 percent of that to federal “conservation” efforts “would be devastating for small towns and rural communities.”
Ironic that those most impacted by Biden’s executive order also happen to be from areas that did not vote for Biden in the 2020 election.
