Fixing the Federal Government

By Rich Kozlovich

(Editor's Note:  I originally published this on 11/20/2016, but time has shown this needs to said again.  So, with updates I'm republishing this today.  RK)

There are so many things wrong with government it's almost impossible to know where to start. I don't envy those in the new administration who've been tasked with that job.  The backlash from the leftists in all these environmental movement, government officials, left wing activist groups, along with their hand maidens in the media has been far worse than anything thrown against Reagan.

To start with we need clarity.  It must be realized any successful modern industrial society needs energy - lots of it - cheap energy - if that society wishes to remain modern and successful.  Although I absolutely share all the concerns regarding energy and it’s production as foundational to a strong economy and sound society, I’m mostly concerned with pesticide issues, which is foundational to the green movement.  Everything started there.

If you really want to get the ball rolling - overturn the ban on DDT. That issue is foundational to the environmental movement. That’s where they got their credibility and more money and power than they ever dreamt of. Even if no one uses it, if the ban on DDT is overturned, and shown to have been a fraudulent action, then everything they’ve said is legitimately called into question.  Their success in banning DDT led to all the other actions by the green movement.

EPA has been involved in all these corrupt sue and settle deals with the activists and the courts have been party to giving them powers the Congress never intended. Investigate and prosecute any government employee that was a party to such an action under RICO. Even if the statute of limitations has run out on such investigations - there is no statute of limitations on firing people for corruption. Prosecute people like graduate student Steven Arnold involving the fraudulent endocrine disruption study out of Tulane University.   And he may have been the fall guy for bigger fish. 

However, it’s impossible to fix them because currently the EPA is so thoroughly infiltrated with environmental activists they will merely wait out any efforts to stop their corrupt practises until the administration changes and then start all over again. Congress is, on any given day, a weak sister in this battle to stop this illegal dismantling of American's Constitutional rights by government agencies under the auspices of "environmental protection".

When it comes to environmental concerns and the federal government, I’m really of the opinion for any "clean up" to be effective requires a broad broom, encompassing the EPA, Fish and Wildlife Service, Army Corp of Engineers, and the Bureau of Land Management.  We could start with adopting Jay Lehr’s five year plan to dismantle the EPA.  Jay is one of the founders of EPA and the Science Director of the Heartland Institute. 

I would like to know where in the Constitution it gives the EPA, or any government agency, more power than all the state governments and the courts of those states combined? They’ve got to be thoroughly dismantled, or at the very least de-funded to the point they are toothless. No more grant money to corrupt "scientists" promoting fallacious environmental claims such as global warming and in my industry - IPM in structural pest control.

The Institute for Energy Research released a new study that inventories these "vastly underutilized" federal assets:

Federal real property totals over 900,000 assets with a combined area of over 3 billion square feet and more than 41 million acres of land. Additionally, the federal government owns over 600 million acres of lands and minerals onshore, and owns or manages a total of approximately 755 million acres of onshore subsurface mineral estate. Offshore, the federal government owns some 1.76 billion acres of lands and mineral estate, extending out 200 nautical miles from our shores. The federal government’s total mineral estate holdings are therefore about 2.515 billion acres of lands. Thus, the federal government’s mineral estate land holdings surpass the total surface land area of the nation of Canada.

In fiscal year 2009, federal agencies reported 45,190 underutilized buildings, an increase of 1,830 underutilized buildings from the previous fiscal year. In fiscal year 2009, these underutilized buildings accounted for $1.66 billion in annual operating costs, according to the General Accounting Office (GAO). The majority of federally owned and leased space is held by the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Postal Service, and the General Services Administration (GSA). For example, the federal government’s landlord, the GSA, owns or leases 9,600 assets with more than 362 million square feet of workspace. According to the GSA, in a 2009 report, almost 40 percent of its assets were under performing. In October 2010, a congressional study evaluated the savings that could occur based on better administration of the government’s above ground assets that totaled over several hundred billion dollars.

 How much is all this worth?

IER estimated the worth of the government’s oil and gas technically recoverable resources to the economy to be $128 trillion, about 8 times our national debt. Further, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that state and national coffers could generate almost $150 billion over a 10 year period from royalties, rents, and bonuses if these resources were immediately opened to oil and gas leasing. The CBO study estimates are considered to be conservative when compared to historical data and estimates by other analysts and do not consider the earnings from taxes paid by these industries. IER estimated the government’s coal resources in the lower 48 states to be worth $22.5 trillion for a total worth to the economy of fossil fuels on federal lands of $150.5 trillion, over 9 times our national debt. Most of the coal resources in Alaska are deemed to be federally owned and are estimated to be 60 percent higher than those in the entire lower 48 states but are not included in these estimates.

Think about that!  Selling off all federal lands and all underutilized properties would actually pay off the national debt and re-fund Social Security.  What a massive fix!

Up until - I think it was 1911 - the goal of the federal government was to get federal lands into the hands of America’s citizens as fast as possible, that’s why everything East of the Mississippi River is largely privately owned and huge tracts of land West of the Mississippi is largely in the hands of the federal government.  Sell that land and there's no need for such a large agencies, including the Fish and Wildlife Service with their own armies.

It was around that time progressives under Teddy Roosevelt began infesting government passing the 16th and 17th amendments and creating the FED, in 1913. All foundational to the efforts by progressives (socialists) wanting to dismantle the Constitution, which both Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson believed was outdated, unnecessary and an impediment to human progress - and should be replaced with "scientifically sound" administrative practises - as in Socialism,

After FDR became President he created vast government agencies under the New Deal, only it wasn't a New Deal at all - it as a re-institution of the fascist policies Woodrow Wilson imposed on the nation during WWI, which remained in effect for approximately two years after the war ended.  That didn't change until Harding became President in 1921. 

Those agencies created by FDR were run by many of the people who worked for Wilson, and were heavily infiltrated by Stalinist agents, communists, socialists and fellow travelers.  Although the Soviet Union and Stalin are gone, those people are still there.  They may have different bodies and different faces, but they're there with the same mentality, the same spirit and the same treasonous mentality.  They've got to be dismantled.

That can be initiated by reviewing all environment laws, starting with the National Environment Policy Act of 1969, but especially the Endangered Species Act. 

Review - defund - dismantle - return power to the states.  It's my opinion that can only be done if must repeal the 16th and 17th Amendments and add a 28th amendment to put age and term limits and restrictions on the federal judiciary, and the Congress. 

That's the only solution.