Harry Reid’s Land Grab

Then, as to be expected in an omnibus bill, there’s the pork. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D.) is requesting $461 million to legally settle a dispute over the San Joaquin River with the environmentalist group Natural Resources Defense Council. The money would be used for a water project that has the “minimum goal” of restoring 500 salmon to the river. (That’s nearly $1 million per fish!) Montana Sen. Jon Tester (D.) wants $5 million to fund a “Wolf Compensation and Prevention Program” to assist property owners use “non-lethal” measures to prohibit wolves from killing their livestock.

The lands bill chief opponent Republican Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.) argues it’s foolish to add acreage to the federal government’s responsibility when it can’t even properly manage treasured properties like the Statue of Liberty or National Mall appropriately. And, “we’re not exactly suffering from a shortage of wilderness,” his spokesman John Hart said in a conversation with Townhall.

Coburn has drafted 13 amendments to the bill, but Reid is not allowing him to offer a single one of them. One of them is a common-sense measure to just require that the current maintenance backlogs of government property be brought up to date.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R.-Ky.) is urging his fellow Republicans to just skip the vote, as a means of opposing the bill and drawing attention to the fact it’s been more than 120 days since Reid allowed a GOP amendment to be accepted on the floor.

Several Republicans, however, have their own projects in the bill making it a difficult vote to skip. Republican Sen. John Barasso of Wyoming, who is typically a reliable conservative vote, has a provision tucked away in the bill to withdraw 1.2 million acres of state land from mineral leasing and energy exploration, where 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 331 million barrels of recoverable oil are estimated to exist.