American Stewards | Conservative Leaders Issue Emphatic Statement Opposing 30×30

An A-list of national conservative leaders issued a strongly worded statement opposing the Biden Administration’s 30×30 agenda to permanently protect 30 percent of the nation’s lands and oceans by 2030. The statement was issued August 31, 2022, and was signed by over 100 prominent leaders, including President Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General, Edwin Meese III, the current Conservative Action Project (CAP) Chairman, Kenneth Blackwell, and Former White House Advisor for President Reagan, Becky Norton Dunlop, now with The Heritage Foundation. Dunlop was one of the keynote speakers at last April’s Stop 30×30 Summit, and was instrumental in gathering the conservative leaders together to voice their opposition to the land grab.

The leaders outlined four core reasons they oppose the unauthorized program:

1. Property rights and widespread ownership of private property are essential foundations of limited government and ordered liberty. The current extent of federal land ownership and of federal land-use controls already threatens these vital constitutional underpinnings. 30 X 30 constitutes another step on the regulatory road to serfdom.

2. When government owns or controls most of the land in rural America, government then controls the rural economies and the lives of rural Americans. Rather than adding another layer of federal regulation over rural America, the President and the Congress should be repealing or reforming existing federal land-use controls and radically reducing the amount of land owned by the federal land agencies.

3. The federal land agencies are more often than not terrible stewards of the environment. For example, the catastrophic wildfires that have destroyed millions of acres of forests in the West and the wildlife living there are fires that start and spread on federal land because of misguided preservationist policies. Private land owners, on the other hand, have strong incentives to take care of what they own through active management. Existing federal controls on private land, such as endangered species habitat designations, have created perverse incentives and thereby damaged the environment. Imposing another layer of federal land-use control can only lead to further environmental degradation.

4. There is no existing legislative authority for 30 X 30, and the 117th Congress has taken no steps to authorize 30 X 30. No hearings have been held by the House and Senate committees of jurisdiction, and no bills to authorize a 30 X 30 program have been introduced. In fact, the only bill that has been introduced, by Representative Lauren Boebert, would prohibit implementation of 30 X 30.

Go here to view the list of leaders who have signed the letter and join them by sharing the statement on your social media and with your email contacts.