America Hating Corrupt Harry Reid’s Land Grab

Harry Reid’s Land Grab
Townhall
by Amanda Carpenter
It’s hard to pinpoint the worst part of the public lands legislation bill Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is calling up for an under-the-radar Sunday vote.
The 1200-page, pork-laden, $10 billion proposal locks up millions of acres of energy-rich property by designating it as environmentalist-friendly “federal wilderness” area where not even as much as a bicycle would be permitted to travel across the land. Many of these areas recently became available when the ban on domestic drilling in Western states expired last fall and the liberal left couldn’t muster the courage to keep it in place due to rising energy prices. Now Democratic leaders are using different legislative strategies to put a new kind of ban in place.

One Republican House staffer put it this way: “Reid is going to make it federal land so no one can touch it. He’s locking up the equivalent of ANWR.”

Since the price of gasoline has dropped and attention has diverted to other matters, such as President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration, Leader Reid has made the land grab a priority and is calling members of the Senate back to Washington on Sunday to rush it through.
For example, one piece of the bill that has drawn the ire of the Wall Street Journal is a provision sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank (D.-Mass.). He’d like to make a robust, container shipping port located in his district’s Taunton River into a scenic tourist destination. This would have the liberally convenient side effect of killing a proposal to create a terminal to import liquefied natural gas.
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Update:

The U.S. Senate passed the bill Sunday by a vote of 66-12.
Majority Leader Harry Reid was successful in corralling enough votes to advance his $10 billion land grab, despite 17 Republicans who protested the bill by skipping the vote altogether.
Basically, by using “federal wilderness” laws and other environental designations, the Democratic Congress is locking-up energy-rich domestic lands. Instead of putting a new energy ban in place, they are just going to let the federal government absorb them so they’ll never be developed.
66 senators supported the bill over 12 who voted “nay” on it. Not a single Democratic senator voted against it.
Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming would vote on the bill. He supported a provision to prohibit energy exploration in state. He DID vote for the bill. So did Barrasso’s fellow Wyoming Republican Sen. Mike Enzi.
Other Republicans who crossed party lines with Barrasso and Enzi to help Reid pass the omnibus were:
Thad Cochran
Susan Collins
Mike Crapo
Orrin Hatch
Richard Lugar
Lisa Murkowski
Jim Risch
Olympia Snowe
Roger Wicker
Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urged his colleagues oppose the bill, protesting the way Reid rushed the bill through. His Communications Director Don Stewart told Townhall, “Sen. McConnell is disappointed this parks bill restricts development of energy resources at a time when we should be doing much more to become energy independent. And less than a week after the CBO announced a staggering $1.2 trillion federal deficit, he questions the merits of rushing a bill that commits to spending billions more of taxpayer dollars.”
The bill will now be sent over to the House where it could be significantly amended by House Republicans although they’ll be forced to be very creative. Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently passed a new rules package that took powerful tools away from the minority when it comes to amending legislation.

Wild Thing’s comment…….
The socialists want to control everything possible so they limit the space to exercize freedom, and also stop and future drilling for Oil.
Harry Reid is my enemy, and I am so sick of this slime that he is and the rest of his partners in crime.

….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67