| Heritage Areas Senate Hearing Tuesday, March 15th
3/12/05 The National Heritage Areas scourge is back! American Land Rights will be there to testify. The Senate subcommittee on National Parks needs to hear from you. Please read the “Action Items” below and make the necessary phone calls. The subcommittee must hear from you before Tuesday. Next Tuesday, March 15th, the subcommittee will hold a hearing to create three new National Heritage Areas spanning five states, and to convert an existing Heritage Area into an official unit of the National Park System. The four bills are as follows: - S.175: the "Bleeding Kansas and Enduring Struggle for Freedom National Heritage Area" (Kansas) - S. 322: the "Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership" (Vermont and New York) - S. 429: the "Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area" (Connecticut and Massachusetts) - S. 323: a bill to designate the "French Colonial Heritage Area" in Missouri as a unit of the National Park System We must take a stand here. Do not hold back anything. Congress is gearing up to not only pass these Heritage Area bills -- but to also create a MASSIVE new Heritage Area Program this year. A Program that would virtually ensure that every square inch of the United States could fall under Heritage Area boundaries. This means huge portions of the U.S. could be subject to the iron-fisted regulatory rule of the National Park Service and their Green allies. We must not let this happen! What’s a Heritage Area? National Heritage Areas are a federal land use scheme. Federal money (pork) is administered through the National Park Service to anti-property rights groups who are directed to preserve just about anything and everything within the Heritage Area. In other words, the Park Service "partners" with local greens to take away YOUR property rights. To read more about the dangers of National Heritage Areas, go to: http://www.americanpolicy.org/prop/senatetestimony.htm. You remember red lining. Loan companies and banks put a red circle around an area and won’t give loans within that area. They strangle the area economically. With a Heritage Area we call it green lining. The Federal government puts a circle around an area they want to control and then over time gradually infill land use controls with Federal zoning and local zoning coercively imposed at the “suggestion” of the Federal agencies. They impose their will by the threat of lost loans, guarantees, Federal funds, water projects, Endangered Species Act enforcement, wetlands enforcement, lost road projects and many more. Local government caves in. You lose. It’s like a reverse buffer zone we stopped them from using around all national parks 20 years ago. Together, land use groups largely stopped the green lining name from being used, so now they have a substitute. It is Heritage Areas. The new green line land use control concept. They just put a pretty name on it, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck, no matter what some folks will tell you in Washington. The Senate Parks Subcommittee must hear from you. Phone numbers are listed below. Peyton Knight will be testifying at the hearing representing the American Land Rights Association. Your calls to members of the subcommittee will strengthen the impact of his testimony. Peyton is Executive Director of the American Policy Center. American Land Rights has been working the Heritage Areas issue in partnership with APC.
-----1. Call National Parks Subcommittee Chairman Craig Thomas (R-WY) and tell him to oppose the creation of ANY new National Heritage Areas. Tell him to vote NO on the four Heritage Area bills listed above. Explain to him that Heritage Areas are unconstitutional expansions of government power that endanger the right of local communities to make their own land use decisions. Heritage Areas are federal land and power grabs! Call Senator Thomas now and ask to speak to the staff person in charge of Heritage Areas: (202) 224-6441. -----2. Call the following members of the National Parks Subcommittee and tell them to vote NO on the four Heritage Area bills listed above. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) 202.224.4944 3. Call both of your Senators and tell them to oppose the creation of ANY new Heritage Areas. Senate Switchboard: (202) 224-3121. Simply ask for your Senator by name. -----4. If you live in the Washington, DC area, go to the Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Room 366 at 2:30 PM on Tuesday, March 15th.
You should get there at least 20 minutes early in order to get a seat.
Land Rights Network
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