Warning - SHE’S NO JEWEL
by Jim Beers
Surprisingly, I have received numerous requests to comment on this latest pick since she will administer my old Alma Mater, the US Fish & Wildlife Service as well as the National Park Service, The Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, US Geological Survey, Bureau of Ocean Energy, Office of Surface Mining – in short the management and conservation of most federal land and natural resources, As if this weren’t enough, the only other big federal land management agency, the US Forest Service over in the US Department of Agriculture along with the secretary of Agriculture is joined at the hip with the Interior Secretary in destroying management and use of the vast (and growing) federal estate’s natural resources and space or the loving destruction of more and more national resources by “saving” them from any human uses, activities or access.
The only critical (in the sense of serious examination not in a negative sense) description of this Interior nominee that I found was in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Kimberley Strassel, a newspaper editorialist of the highest order. She, Strassel not Jewell, has long been a female role model for all Americans in my opinion right at the top of my list with Margaret Thatcher and Nellie Gray. Strassel’s examination of Jewell, A Jewell Who’s Rough on Jobs, can be found on the Friday 8 February 2013 WSJ Opinion page.
Strassel tells us that Jewell:
- Supports a Carbon Tax.
- Characterizes oil extraction in terms of polluting creeks and other (inferred) hidden costs of oil consumption.
- Formed a business alliance with other “concerned” (i.e. green) CEO’s to:
1. Lock up half of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve set aside 90 years ago specifically for oil and gas.
2. File lawsuits attacking power plants, off-road vehicles, and snowmobiles.
3. Help the Park Service and California radicals manipulate federal laws to illegally and unjustly destroy an 80-year-old, sustainable oyster business, 30 jobs and a major west coast source of oysters that will now disappear into the “Wilderness” maw.
4. Supporting the Clinton-era Roadless Area Conservation Rule which locked up a third of all national Forests.
5. Fighting the Bush Administration efforts to introduce some flexibility in the previous President’s “Rule”. (Evidently only certain Presidents have such authority or flexibility.) Ms. Jewell declared, “We develop them, we log them, we mine them, we lose those assets forever.” (This statement is right up there with the idiocy and disregard for fact exhibited in the “we had to destroy the village to save it” statement.)
6. Funding radical groups like the “Conservation Alliance” (a purposefully misleading misnomer similar to Russia’s former “Peoples Republic of…” naming) to the unmentionable intimidations and litigation extremism of Earthjustice.
7. Takes credit for 77 oil and gas leases halted in Utah, 55,000 acres put off limits to oil and gas jobs in Colorado, the destruction of functioning dams and the removal of millions of acres from any business pursuit.
8. Forced the (Native American) Arctic Slope Regional Corporation to remark that her corporate alliance crippled “the lone economic driver for our communities” while making their community “exhibits in an outdoor museum”.
Nothing of substance, in addition to the above seems to exist about this woman. Like nearly every other politician of either stripe in recent years, her actual behavior and values are ignored by all but a few writers such as Ms. Stassel. Even such basic information as religion and marital status are unmentioned. Why are these last items important in these days of government equality quotas and government statistic collection for things we are all but forbidden to speak about? Good question.
Religion is important to tell the voter or person concerned with (as here) the personal values of the subject.
- Is the person a Christian or an atheist? This gives you an inkling of whether the person has mutual moral values with many of us such as human ascendancy in the world or some other values such as humans being equal to or unequal to animals. Is the person more liable to respect the firm agreements laid out in the US Constitution or be susceptible to view them as merely outdated and antiquated values of a bygone era between men with far different basic norms in a long-gone world?
- Is the person of a religion that spawns terrorists with very hard feelings against Christians and Americans in particular? If so, what does that mean for someone with a life or death hold over rural America, rural American communities, or hog matters or dog ownership and use, etc.?
- Is the person of interest a member of some sect that holds tenets that directly affect or conflict with American natural resource management or use? Private property rights, particularly of animals?
- All of the above are important for American citizens to judge the future path and policies under a person that must be confirmed by the US Senate that (ostensibly) represents State (and once-upon-a-time rural) interests.
Marital status is important to give an inkling of the time horizon and citizen concerns of the person of interest.
- Is she married? Married persons tend to have societal views and values that are broader than their individual concerns.
- Has she ever been married? If so, how often or for how long? Individuals that cannot maintain personal relationships may create questions of stability and reliance when under pressures of office.
- Has she ever had children? People with children tend to think of the world they are leaving to their children and grandchildren as opposed to the personal benefits of the moment or the individual’s lifetime only.
- Is she a spinster or a lesbian or some other lifestyle practitioner? Other citizen’s experience and knowledge of these matters form important components of their opinions of the desirability of such persons for particular offices.
- Does she live with someone outside marriage? This also is a window into the values and traditional respect one can expect of a person in high office regarding cultural respect and moral values that enter into the person’s decision-making.
Given all the foregoing, what would I expect of Ms. Jewell as Secretary of the Interior?
- She will exhibit a strong dislike for grazing allotments, forest management, wildlife management, hunting, fishing, trapping, Local government expressions, “unruly” State politicians and bureaucrats.
- She will exhibit an absolute and completely unfettered enthusiasm for more government land acquisition; more government-supported private property easement; public and private land closures to access and use; more wolves, grizzly bear, and coyote protections and spread; campaigns by federal bureaucrats to eradicate pheasants, brown trout, Hungarian partridge, chukars, Great Lakes salmon and all other desirable species bureaucratically-identified as “Non-Native”; corridor and trail expansions by government condemnation using both recreational and UN “Corridor” mythology regarding ecosystems and charismatic animal myths; more acquisition money and NO Payment-in-Lieu-of Tax funding for Local governments or communities where federal landholdings exist: more Scenic this-and-that Declarations; more Historic “Preservation
District” Declarations: I could go on here but my time and your patience can take no more on this endless listing.
- I also can certainly see the anti-resource use and anti-resource management and pro-federal government rule bureaucracy among Interior bureaucrats (my way of saying all of them) drooling to “propose” things to this lady to prove their great worth to the Department and thus to be rewarded by bonuses, promotions, and recognition by “their peers”. I can hear it now:
1. “Madame Secretary, they (i.e. you and me) are going to cut that stand of big trees that can be seen from Rockclimber’s Rock that is only 16 miles away. Their (the climbers) view will be diminished when they reach ‘the top’ if we don’t preserve the ‘Viewshed’ by condemning and buying that tree stand for the Park Service ASAP.”
2. “Madame Secretary, hunters are scaring the mountain bike riders the first week of October each year, nothing short of closing these trails and all lands within a mile on either side to any hunting or shooting at any time will save the equanimity and mental health of these young recreationists on federal lands. Also, two stubborn grazing allotment holders are crying for wolf controls on their allotments and ranch property so we are recommending immediate condemnation and purchase of their ranches and elimination of their grazing allotment to stop their immediate threat to those highly important and valuable wolves.”
3. “Madame Secretary, we must have a massive land acquisition and easement program immediately if we are to meet the standards in the latest UN ‘Y-to-Y’ portion of the secretly-negotiated addendum to the Small Arms Treaty requiring signers to meet certain specific land control standards in addition to gun registration and confiscation timetables. What’s that? Oh, ‘Y-to-Y’ used to mean 2-mile wide corridors for wildlife, recreationists and native ecosystems from the Yukon to Yellowstone Park. Our negotiators at the UN suggested 3-mile wide corridors of government land from Yukon to the Yucatan Peninsula. What was finally written into the Treaty was 5-mile wide swaths within 5 years from the Yukon to York Beach, Maine to Yeehaw Junction, Florida to the Yucatan Peninsula and back to the Yukon through Yellowstone Park. The urgency here is the greatest facing this nation since Pearl Harbor. Who me? My name is Jim Beers and I work in the US Fish and Wildlife Service and, forgive me for saying this, but I think you and President Obama are mirror images. Oh thank you, I will work hard to further your agenda with such innovative thinking and part of this bonus and promotion will go to animal protection leagues and environmental warriors out there on the front line. May Gaia bless you too.”
I am not wearing a turban, nor do I have a crystal ball, but I will bet this isn’t far from the truth of how Ms. Jewell’s performance in this position will go down in the history books.
Jim Beers
10 February 2013
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Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.
Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting. You can receive future articles by sending a request with your e-mail address to: jimbeers7@comcast.net