So when do we start litigating?

[dannyb278]

No expert by any means, but listing to the Hunt Talk Podcast, I've become a little more familiar how groups litigate federal agencies into bending their will. Wolves being a perfect example.

I'm no doubt speaking way above my paygrade, but I have to imagine that there have been discussions at a high level within the hunting conservation community on how we could use those same tactics to try to preserve the lands and traditions that we hold so dear now that they are clearly facing threats from this Republican dominated administration and congress.

If the dirty tactics of serial litigation are the only way to get things done in politics, perhaps its time to get dirty.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Suddenly, weakening the Equal Access to Justice Law seems like a bad idea, eh?

 

[JoseCuervo]

Suddenly, weakening the Equal Access to Justice Law seems like a bad idea, eh?

I hate it when being a lone voice in the wilderness becomes crowded....

 

[Ben Lamb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lszu1O1Zkes

 

[RobG]

Regarding access, it may make sense to start suing the forest service to start maintaining less popular trails more often. They aren't going to do it without outside pressure, especially under the new administration.

 

[dannyb278]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lszu1O1Zkes

Time to "Use a little to much dynamite" to paraphrase Sundance.

 

[BuzzH]

Regarding access, it may make sense to start suing the forest service to start maintaining less popular trails more often. They aren't going to do it without outside pressure, especially under the new administration.

Maybe time to throw the bums we elect out for not providing funding to the Agencies to maintain trails...

The FS cant maintain trails with imaginary funds.

 

[Foxtrot1]

Maybe time to throw the bums we elect out for not providing funding to the Agencies to maintain trails...

The FS cant maintain trails with imaginary funds.

Words of wisdom. Congress has been starving the Forest Service out for years. They are expected to do more with less. As the wildland urban interface continues to get worse, management will continue to suffer. Maybe it's time for private land owners to pay their own way for wildfire suppression around communities? With the current ban on federal hiring and the status of their budget, I can't see any improvements in the FS's ability to manage assets properly. The only way to improve management of natural resources in this country is to elect politicians that place a priority on these assets.

 

[Hunting Wife]

We're way beyond "do more with less". We moved into "do less, period" a few years ago.

Word came down this week that we are to plan for a 10% budget cut in 2018 - I believe all the land management agencies are in the same boat here. We are already sitting on numerous vacancies, and this level of budget reduction will mean further cuts to staffing levels from where we are currently.

Sue all you want, but with no money and no staff, things won't get done. The voters have spoken.

 

[dannyb278]

We're way beyond "do more with less". We moved into "do less, period" a few years ago.

Word came down this week that we are to plan for a 10% budget cut in 2018 - I believe all the land management agencies are in the same boat here. We are already sitting on numerous vacancies, and this level of budget reduction will mean further cuts to staffing levels from where we are currently.

Sue all you want, but with no money and no staff, things won't get done. The voters have spoken.

I don't think the point of suing woUld be to make agencies like the USFS get more stuff done, rather block dangerous legislation from Washington D.C.

 

[Big Fin]

I don't think the point of suing woUld be to make agencies like the USFS get more stuff done, rather block dangerous legislation from Washington D.C.

Litigation does not stop legislation, unless such legislation is deemed unconstitutional. If it is passed by Congress and considered Constitutional, it is a waste of time to litigate; it will get nowhere.

Where litigation creates changes is when agencies do not follow their own regulations. Or, when Congress pressures agencies to ignore other laws such as the ESA/Clean Air/Clean Water Acts, etc. That is where litigation can change the course.

That fact is why the land thieves are going the Congressional route. If Congress passes a land sale there is not a single litigation tactic that can stop it. Litigation might stall it, but not for long.

This has been their end goal all along. The last decade of posturing Public Land Transfer at the state level has been a marketing strategy to soften the beachheads and instill the narrative that Federal lands are a terrible thing. What you are seeing in this Congress is their final push to execute this long-crafted strategy.

If Congress and the President go along with the dumb idea, there is no safety net of litigation. The lines are drawn and we must hold the line.

 

[dannyb278]

....Congress pressures agencies to ignore other laws such as the ESA/Clean Air/Clean Water Acts, etc. That is where litigation can change the course....If Congress and the President go along with the dumb idea, there is no safety net of litigation. The lines are drawn and we must hold the line.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. This political stuff can seem mind numbingly confusing. no doubt designed that way. I guess I didn't specifically mean for land transfer, but also included thoughts on some of the other things that might happen by executive decree. Say, the impossible state and federal environmental clearances that would be needed so the President could build his wall. Much like environmentalist suing during proposed gas pipeline construction.

 

[Big Fin]

Say, the impossible state and federal environmental clearances that would be needed so the President could build his wall. Much like environmentalist suing during proposed gas pipeline construction.

His Executive Order isn't worth the paper it's written on when it comes to "The Wall." He does not have his own personal US Treasury checkbook, even if he wants to act like he does. But, it makes for good circus-style showmanship.

Your wall comment is a good example of an action that could be litigated until the ends of time. Think of all our laws that will have an impact on when, where, how that wall can be built. NEPA, ESA, Clean Water Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, ABC Act, XYZ Act, 123 Act, Chit for Brains Act. You name it, they all have to be complied with to build that wall for those 2,000 miles. The litigators full-time employment wall.

Tangent - Having just hiked that AZ-Mexico fence line for a few miles of steep nasty canyons, anyone thinking this wall can be built across 2,000 miles, for $15 Billion, across that terrain, in the manner required to be an actual deterrent, is smoking crack. I did a YouTube piece about the fallacy of that idea and how funny, well maybe sorry, it is that a few people really think that is feasible. I'll take any $100 bet that is offered that this wall will not be done by the time Trump leaves office. And another $100 that even if/when it is done, $15 Billion is going to be a price tag so far in the rear view mirror that $25 Billion would look like a bargain. I need to get that video edited. Should be funny as hell.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Thanks for clearing that up for me. This political stuff can seem mind numbingly confusing. no doubt designed that way. I guess I didn't specifically mean for land transfer, but also included thoughts on some of the other things that might happen by executive decree. Say, the impossible state and federal environmental clearances that would be needed so the President could build his wall. Much like environmentalist suing during proposed gas pipeline construction.

If litigation is needed, it is going to be the environmental advocate firms that have been winning in court for years. It is always good to support them, their goals are common to hunters goals at the 95% level. Even $25 or $35 contributions help them. The cash helps, and, it allows them to claim xx,xxx+1 donors in their next communication. That helps them raise more money from big and little sources.

The nice thing about the environmental law firms is that they operate with relatively low overhead. Your $$$ go along way. (Disclaimer: Some on this forum don't like these firms, and, in this thread I don't care to debate their merits. I am merely explaining.)

Then, once you get going, the key is going to be spreading your support around. consider some of the following actions.

• Subscribe to newspapers. Real ones. Washington Post, NY Times, and the investigative sites like Mother Jones and ProPublica. Keeping track of Trump & Co. will take reporters and $$$$.
• Join the Pro-public lands groups. BHA, Sierra Club, Western Watersheds, Idaho Rivers United, etc..whichever ones in your area you support.
• Help those who are getting bullied. The advocacy groups, Planned Parenthood, etc. and other groups..
• Attend a rally, attend a meeting, attend a hearing.

 

[MTGomer]

I think the wall is a pipedream.
An EA for a pipeline I've been involved with is set to be approved in the coming month. It is on year 4, for a project that is to carry treated DRINKING WATER, within the bounds of a sovereign nation (reservation), in areas that do not have any (no griz, ferrets or sage grouse) endangered or threatened species.

The mexican Gray wolf, desert tortoise, gila monster, and now jaguars are just a few species that will need to be considered on the southern border..

 

[JoseCuervo]

I think the wall is a pipedream.
An EA for a pipeline I've been involved with is set to be approved in the coming month. It is on year 4, for a project that is to carry treated DRINKING WATER, within the bounds of a sovereign nation (reservation), in areas that do not have any (no griz, ferrets or sage grouse) endangered or threatened species.

The mexican Gray wolf, desert tortoise, gila monster, and now jaguars are just a few species that will need to be considered on the southern border..

Just have congress gut the Endangered Species Act. Not an issue.

Who is going to stop them?

 

[BuzzH]

Another big problem Trump is going to have on building his wall, besides the ones that Fin pointed out due to terrain and the various Acts, is the Tohono O'odham Reservation, and IIRC also the Cocopah Reservation as well.

In case Trump hasn't been briefed, those reservations border Mexico...and if he thinks he's going to bully the Tribes, he better think again. His administration will essentially be dealing with a sovereign nation when it comes to the tribes.

He'll be up to his bad hair in legal wrangling with those reservations...reservations that already have very little tolerance for his administration.

He lives in fantasyland, that wall will not happen. Those that believe it will happen are living it that same fantasyland.

 

[dannyb278]

Yup. Although I cant get to deep into it, my previous employer had me do some of the early environmental surveys for the disasterous Dakota Access Pipeline Project. The initial permit was pushed through fast and the project has been a disaster since day one, in every one of the 4 states it crosses, much like the wall would be. Pretty sure over a year in and they haven't broken ground. That's just on a little buried pipe, imaging a 50 foot concrete wall. never going to happen.

Besides ESA, other almost insurmountable regs. would be thrown at that wall hard.

Section 106 for protected cultural sites (the survey for this alone would take at least 2 years.)

Not to mention that the wall would cross multiple rivers and waterbodies meaning you would need to get the Army Corp of Engineers involved in the process

Plus the tribes as previously noted.

And some huge chunks of BLM and Forest Service to spend a few years getting the NEPA process figured out

And thousands of private land owners who aren't going to take well to a 50 foot concrete wall or the Eminent Domain needed to build it and the multiple access roads for construction.

That's all before a single lawsuit.

 

[u1299]

Another big problem Trump is going to have on building his wall, besides the ones that Fin pointed out due to terrain and the various Acts, is the Tohono O'odham Reservation, and IIRC also the Cocopah Reservation as well.

In case Trump hasn't been briefed, those reservations border Mexico...and if he thinks he's going to bully the Tribes, he better think again. His administration will essentially be dealing with a sovereign nation when it comes to the tribes.

He'll be up to his bad hair in legal wrangling with those reservations...reservations that already have very little tolerance for his administration.

He lives in fantasyland, that wall will not happen. Those that believe it will happen are living it that same fantasyland.

A 70 year old man who has yet to even grasp the concept of a good haircut, can stand in front of the world and proclaim as if we were the Great and powerful Wizard of Oz, "I will make America Great Again" and it will be soon, next month, next week, or probably by the end of the day and it will be truly great, trust me! Nobody in this country that I'm aware of has ever had that much power or knowledge or the audacity to proclaim they do, but for the man with the cotton candy hairdo that is now our President. He'll get his chance for sure though I'm not a bit happy about it, but son of a bitch I miss President Obama, more than you'll ever know.

 

[onpoint]

Hell, I miss Dick Cheney. At least he WAS a hunter. Took mostly head shots.......