PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS UNDER ATTACK

Natural Capital Accounting and the Biden-Harris Climate Agenda

Congress faces a barrage of issues that can be referred to as critical, urgent, and important; however, there are some issues that are foundational. One such foundational ideal – the right to own land – has never in our history been more threatened than it is today, and never has Congressional action been more important to protecting this right.

In its first week in office, the Biden-Harris Administration implemented the international 30×30 plan to permanently block off 30 percent of the world’s lands and waters by 2030. The purpose is to keep or “return” these lands to their “natural state” to stop so-called climate change, apparently to be achieved by excluding all human use. The federal government claims only 12 percent, or roughly 300 million acres of land, is currently permanently protected in America to qualify for 30×30, even though federal agencies own and control over 600 million acres of U.S. land. Through this 30×30 program, they intend to lock down an additional 400 million acres, or the equivalent footprint of Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nevada combined. Locking up and preventing access to federal lands is one way to achieve their goal, which they have been pursuing. They are also targeting private lands, however, devising new paths to control how Americans use their private property.

One method of blocking access and use is by importing the United Nations developed system of “natural capital accounting” (NCA), which makes a ledger of what they have defined as “natural resources.” NCA then assigns arbitrary values, derived from political extremism rather than economics, to value the “environmental service benefits” derived from land and its resources, which includes everything from air and water, to pollen, photosynthesis, and more. Determining the value of these “environmental services” derived from American lands is the catalyst to use regulations, federal spending, and outside influence from radical climate groups to seal off lands from productive use, including food and energy development, harvesting of building materials, and more, all under the guise of avoiding harm to these so-called “environmental services benefits.” This is the hidden way in which NCA accomplishes the 30×30 goal.

The complexities of NCA would confuse Albert Einstein – and this is purposefully done to make it difficult for any landowner, Congress, or court to unravel the scheme. There are two recent examples of how the Biden-Harris Administration is putting NCA in place- the SUSTAINS Act and through the creation of Natural Asset Companies.

The SUSTAINS Act – a parting gift from Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the 2022 massive Omnibus spending bill– yet another reason to avoid these massive waste-laden Omnis and appropriate through regular order. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation programs receive billions annually in mandatory spending and continue to shift from traditional conservation practices intended to extend the productive use of land, such as preventing soil erosion and protecting water resources, to “preservation.” While ostensibly voluntary, decades of unfair competition from corporate agriculture and an overreaching federal regulatory scheme incentivize landowners to enter into these contracts for relief. The SUSTAINS Act allows USDA to accept private donations to expand these programs, and outside donors can then select their preferred environmental cause and prescribe the terms of owning their entity’s share of so-called “environmental service benefits.” As these “benefit owners” seek to maximize the value of the “environmental service benefits,” furthering the 30×30 agenda, they will thereby be able to prohibit productive land use in a direct attack on property rights.

Second, the Biden-Harris Securities and Exchange Commission attempted to list Natural Asset Companies (NACs) on the New York Stock Exchange, another effort showing the complexity of the NCA campaign. Most people have never heard of NACs, likely because they are not a real economic entity, and because the left tried to sneak this entire scheme past us. Investors, including foreign governments, would own “ecological performance” of land and maximize its value by blocking activities of general real value and development, such as grazing, mineral production, energy development, and more. Fortunately, we have blocked the proposed listing of NACs, but must look out for attempts to use global, radical investors to advance 30×30 to the detriment of modern society.

These are recent examples, but NCA is an active component of the 30×30 agenda and Congress must be vigilant. The Biden-Harris Administration is concurrently running a U.S. “National Nature Review” to assign a value to our nation’s “natural assets” via its National Strategy to Develop Statistics for Environmental-Economic Decisions, and thereby place these so-called natural assets on the U.S. balance sheet. In April, the Administration announced a series of pilot natural capital accounts, action items derived from the National Strategy.

Congress must fight these continued efforts to use 30×30 to undermine the use of our national resources and incentivize additional deficit spending through the creation of new, false assets.

Especially following the overturning of Chevron, Congress must stop ceding authority to agency rulemaking. 2030 is six years away and I can guarantee the push for 30% will grow even stronger as we near that magic year.