Border securityHouse bill allows Border Patrol to ignore environmental, safety protections along borders
The House of Representatives passed a sweeping bill which would allow the Border Patrol to ignore dozens of environmental protection laws — among them the Wilderness Act and Endangered Species Act — on all federally managed land within 100 miles of the Mexico and Canada borders; supporters argue that the measure is necessary to give the border patrol more freedom to chase illegal immigrants and drug smugglers; critics charge that the measure has little, if anything, to do with border security, and more to do with opening federally managed land to exploitation by private businesses, or pandering to local political constituencies
Bill would allow Border Patrol to ignore environmental protections // Source: ljworld.com
The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a sweeping bill – HR 1505 — which would allow the Border Patrol to ignore dozens of environmental protection laws — among them the Wilderness Act and Endangered Species Act — on all federally managed land within 100 miles of the Mexico and Canada borders (see here for a map detailing the areas covered by the bill).
The legislation would override thirty-six environmental, safety, and other regulations, including the Wilderness Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Antiquities Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the Migratory Bird Act, the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act, the Fish and Wildlife Act, among others.
The bill, sponsored by Representative Rob Bishop (R-Utah) passed on 232-188 vote.
Bishop said that environmentally inspired limits imposed on border patrol agents have turned federally managed lands into highways for drug traffickers and other criminals. “Drug traffickers couldn’t care less about environmental sensitivities,” he said. “The removal of these criminals from our public lands is a value to the environment as well as the mission of the land managers.”
Opponents of the bill – see a list here of some of the organizations opposing the bill — charged that it has little to do with border security, and much more to do with opening federally managed land to exploitation by private businesses, or pandering to local political constituencies.
CBS News reports that the critics — among them hunters, conservationists, scientists, and Hispanic advocacy groups — say the bill’s true aim is to gut important environmental protections, not increase border security. They note, for example, that debates about how best to protect the U.S.-Mexico border aside, there is no justification to implement the measure along the long Canadian border, where there is no evidence that illegal immigrants or drug smugglers are hiking through national parks or wilderness areas in order to enter the United States.
The bill, for example, would transfer control of more than 65,000 acres of centuries-old trees in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to a private corporation. The measure allows the Sealaska Corp. to log large, old-growth trees in the Tongass, the nation’s largest national forest.
CBS News notes that Sealaska is one of thirteen Native regional corporations established under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which compensated Alaska Natives for the loss of lands they historically used or occupied.
Critics say that the opening of Tongass’ old forest for logging has nothing to do with border security or, for that matter, with Indian culture or sacred value. Rather, allowing logging in the forest would generate billions of dollars in timber sales.
Critics cited a letter sent to Congress by 300 eminent scientists who said old-growth logging in the Tongass could jeopardize ecosystems in one of the world’s last remaining temperate rainforests and release greenhouse gases.
Critics of the bill point to another provision in the bill which has little to do with border security: the provision would make it easier for states and Indian tribes to kill California sea lions that eat endangered salmon on the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest.
The Border Patrol has not asked for the powers the bill gives the agency, and agency’s director told Congressional researchers that “land management laws have had no effect on Border Patrol’s overall measure of border security.” DHS secretary Janet Napolitano recently called HR 1505 “unnecessary” and “bad policy.”
The White House opposes the bill, saying that in its current form the measure would “thwart successful efforts by agencies to collaborate on border security” and presents “a false choice between natural resources protection and the economy or national security.”
Observers say there is no chance the bill would be approved by the Senate.
