by Mike Gray

At BigThink.com, Frank Jacobs tells us:

The United States government has direct ownership of almost 650 million acres of land (2.63 million square kilometers) – nearly 30% of its total territory. …. Notable is that all these states are in the West (except Alaska, which strictly speaking is also a western state, albeit northwestern). [Click on the map to enlarge.]

Perhaps the President has a ‘green gene’ that codes for his all too predictable behavior—the current administration seems bent on acquiring as much land space as it can. Michelle Malkin believes the President’s radical agnosticism about the Constitution coupled with his infatuation with “green energy”might be at the bottom of it all:

… across the country, White House officials have been meeting quietly with environmental groups to map out government plans for acquiring untold millions of acres of both public and private land. It’s another stealthy power grab through executive order that promises to radically transform the American way of life.

The President wants a report by November which will

reflect the constraints in resources available in, and be consistent with, the Federal budget. It should recommend efficient and effective use of existing resources, as well as opportunities to leverage nonfederal public and private resources and nontraditional conservation programs. [Please define “efficient and effective use”—and what do “leverage” and “nontraditional” mean in this context?]

According to a White House Press Release dated April 16, 2010, one of the goals of his ‘Great Outdoors Initiative’ is to

[b]uild upon State, local, private, and tribal priorities for the conservation of land, water, wildlife, and cultural resources, creating corridors and connectivity across these outdoor spaces, and for enhancing neighborhood parks; and determine how the Federal Government can best advance those priorities through public private partnerships and locally supported conservation strategies. [The phrase “creating corridors and connectivity” has sinister overtones: If they’re not already connected, the implication is that whatever’s in between would have to be confiscated (or, as a radical environmentalist might view it, “liberated”)—and let’s not forget that in “public private partnerships,” the “public” partner normally calls all the shots.]

All of which has Michelle Malkin gravely concerned:

Property owners [in New England] have every reason to be worried. The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) is a pet project of green radicals, who want the decades-old government slush fund for buying up private lands to be freed from congressional appropriations oversight. It’s paid for primarily with receipts from the government’s offshore oil and gas leases. Both Senate and House Democrats have included $900 million in full LWCF funding, not subject to congressional approval, in their energy/BP oil spill legislative packages. [Now THAT’S never letting a crisis go to waste!]

To appease his radical enviros constituency, the President wants to “lock up” lands rich in energy resources in the name of conservation and a healthy environment. The equivalent of three Saudi Arabias—guaranteeing America’s total independence of foreign sources for energy—is said to lie under the sands of the western United States, and that’s where it’ll still be lying a century from now if the present administration has its way.