FEBRUARY 2, 2025

"Wins in 2024 - Life Liberty and Property:

A Year in Review" with Nathan Descheemaeker

FULL TWO HOURS

 WE THE PEOPLE RADIO

HOUR 1

 WE THE PEOPLE RADIO

HOUR 2

 WE THE PEOPLE RADIO
 

About our Guest Nathan Descheemaeker
Nathan Descheemaeker -and his family raise registered feeder calves in Central Montana.
Descheemaeker is a Senior Research Associate and Policy Analyst specializing in federal and local government administrative procedures, land and natural resource policymaking, local governmental relations, and program management. Nathan is also an accomplished musician and a self taught theologian witha love for the classics. Nathan has worked with local governments to identify and challenge attacks on small farm and ranch operations facing increased pressure and regulation by forces and groups outside of Montana, and many times outside of the United States.

Check out his website: Nathan Descheemaeker, Author at Liberty Sentinel

Red Pill Expo 2020 Breakout Interview 10/11/2020: Nathan Descheemaeker - YouTube
 

After Local Opposition USFWS Backs Off Regs that prohibit Agriculture Practices the USFWS published a preliminary notice  of its intent to withdraw the BIDEH regulations. The Montana Natural Resource Coalition of Counties (MtNRC) has been engaged on Refuge system policy changes and opposing attempts to expand the refuge system within the State of Montana and the Nation. MtNRC specifically drafted substantive comment for the BIDEH reg changes USFWS promulgated February 2024

 These proposed regulations prioritized focusing on pre-human conditions within the refuge system (which includes conservation buffers) and inappropriately leave discretion to unit managers to alter wildlife and biodiversity targets. The proposed changes would have also prohibited the use of agricultural practices unless they are "determined necessary to meet statutory requirements, fulfill refuge purposes."
 MtNRC comments specifically addressed how the proposed policies pose conflicting and competing priorities for refuge managers using the CMR game refuge as a case example.  USFWS preliminary publication states, "The substantive comments received addressed a broad scope of issues in the BIDEH proposal and demonstrated the complexity of the topics addressed in the proposal. . . Based on the extensive public comments we received on the proposed rule, the complexity of the topics they covered, and new information not previously considered, it is the Service’s sound professional judgment that any final rule would require revisions that go beyond the logical outgrowth of the original proposal. Therefore, the Service has determined that the best course of action is to withdraw the entirety of the February 2, 2024, proposed rule and policy revision."

 "In reviewing these comments, the Service understands the concern raised by commenters about a lack of clarity within the proposal regarding the specific implementation process for ensuring BIDEH"

 "These comments demonstrate some of the issues that require further communication and coordination with partners and stakeholders to ensure greater understanding of the Service’s intent before the finalization of any BIDEH proposal."
 In an E&E article entitled, Republicans to lampoon ‘BIDEH’ ideas for wildlife refuges By Michael Doyle published April 2024 MtNRC comments are specifically quoted in the release, "More than 54,000 public comments flooded the agency during a comment period that ended March 4, a number of them challenging the agency's fundamental declarations." and that, "The USFWS asserts that climate change has had an unanticipated impact on the refuge system," wrote John Fahlgren, president of the Montana Natural Resource Coalition, a network of 18 counties. "This assertion needs to be rationally verified and documented at the unit level with full consultation with counties and adjacent land holders.""

 Bullets extracted from
 MtNRC comment letter:
  • The Climate-Policy Agenda (CPA) is deficient in that it fails to comply with the Data Quality Act standards for scientific information and inappropriately relies upon top-down executive directives and international guidance while significantly diminishing intergovernmental coordination with political sub-divisions of the United States.
  • The CPA agenda has resulted in a fragmented public record, and diminished the role, power, and authority of State and local governments by removing parity they have in land-use planning.
  • USFWS proposed policies fail to consider interagency land use planning conflicts and impacts to private property and local governments by imposing the expansion of refuge boundaries and prioritizing pre-human conditions and ecosystem corridors.
    [1]
  • The proposed Rule does not contain peer reviewed scientific information, data, articles, and/or other substantive, high integrity, reproducible scientific information that would allow MtNRC county governments to understand the need, purpose, and foreseeable impacts of the proposed Rule.
  • The administrative record for the proposed Rule does not contain examples of climate change or invasive species that would allow MtNRC members to conclude why the BIDEH regulations are necessary.
  • The BIDEH as proposed prioritizes management that would further pressure compatible uses on individual refuges which have long established compatible and historic use.
    [2]
  • The proposed BIDEH Rule in conjunction with the Missouri Headwaters Conservation Area and the land planning policy changes constitute a group of concerted efforts
    [3]
     by USFWS which poses unassessed impacts on the state and counties which contain or border the refuge systems.

 “An immense effect may be produced by small powers wisely and steadily directed.”
 - Noah Webster 1821
 ________________________________________________________________________
 [1]
  Federal Register / Vol. 89, No. 23 / Friday, February 2, 2024 / Proposed Rules – “Historical conditions means composition, structure, and function of ecosystems that existed prior to ecological degradation caused by anthropogenic change, based on best available scientific and historical information.” (all bold, emphasis ours)
 [2]
  "This proposed language would untether current and future management actions from sustaining historical conditions that may no longer be possible on many refuges," the FWS said.
 [3]
  CFR 1508.1(q)(3) “Major Federal actions tend to fall within one of the following categories: (iii) Adoption of programs, such as a group of concerted actions to implement a specific policy or plan; systematic and connected agency decisions allocating agency resources to implement a specific statutory program or executive directive.” (emphasis ours)
 

“An immense effect may be produced by small powers wisely and steadily directed.”- Noah Webster 1821May 8th, 2024, the U.S. Department of Energy Grid Deployment Office (DOE) initiated phase 2 of a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC) designation process and published a preliminary list of potential NIETC areas. These corridors as shown below covered significant geographical regions across the states. These corridors would open potential for federal eminent domain powers to cite electric transmissions lines and systems, as well as open up finance for battery storage and renewable energy grid connection. This justification from DOE regarding the need for these corridors is projected congestion and constraints on the grid as a result of the build out of wind and solar systems as well as AI data centers.

 Grid Deployment Office Preliminary National Interest Corridors Phase 2
 This is largely policy driven by executive edict pushing onerous decarbonization objectives through central economic planning.
 A jointly written white paper by Level 10 Energy, The Nature Conservancy, and the Audubon Society[1] concede to the fact that “In the U.S. alone, it’s estimated that in order to achieve net-zero GHG emissions by 2050, developers will need an area of land greater than that of Colorado and Wyoming combined to construct new renewable energy projects.” As we now see from the Department of Energy, the transmission corridors "needed" for accommodating such buildout is extensive. Meanwhile Bureau of Land Management opened up over 30 million acres of public lands to solar development.
These processes represent an active distortion of the market order by penalizing the efficient for the benefit of the inefficient. The federal government has failed to perform a comparative cost benefit analysis assessing the impacts associated with government coercively directing private investment with complete disregard for consumer choice.[2]
Renewable energy as a grid generation source of electricity has proved unprofitable[3] and thus requires significant subsidies and allowances by government actors which manipulates the market order by directing investments away from efficiency and imposes excess costs on consumers and rate payers in the short and long term.
“Central planning is not a mature method of organizing the economic system but, even at best, the benevolent but unscientific bungling of the few, striving vainly to decide for the many consumers what those consumers can only decide rationally for themselves. It is, therefore, to be expected that in the communities where attempts are made to impose a central plan there will be gross misdirection of production and widespread neglect of the needs of the consumer.”
- John Jewkes, Ordeal by Planning, Macmillian and Co. LTD London 1948, ch. 7 Planning as a Scientific Method, p. 146
 Thankfully as a result of strong local opposition and the resolve of local leaders, Department of Energy has significantly pulled back its reach regarding these corridors. As shown below the Energy Department on December 16th issued official Notice of Phase 3 of the project which removed the corridors from Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri, while significantly reducing the footprint in other States. The comparison between phase 2 and phase 3 maps shows how local powers can significantly affect federal administrative process.

 National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor Designation Process | Department of Energy Phase 3
 The idea that a whole of government and whole of economy transition to renewables is feasible is a dangerous proposition which was unlawfully propagated over the last few years. As renowned economist Milton Friedman once
 remarked, “inflation is a result of inaccurate assessment of the true cost of government policies as much as it is a result of government spending itself” (emphasis added).
 These processes are resulting in vast transformative impacts on the national economy and political process with no cumulative accountability to the public, disregard by federal departments of domestic procedural safeguards, while ceding the National interests of the United States lands and waters to foreign influence at the expense of the American taxpayer.

 _________________________________________________________________________
 [1]
 TNC, Partners Advocate for an Energy Transition with New Paper (nature.org);
 BeyondCarbonFreeFinal.pdf (nature.org);
 Net-Zero America Project (princeton.edu)
 [2] Murray N. Rothbrand - Man, Economy, and State A Treatise on Economic Principles, with Power and Market (Ludwig Von Mises Institute, Scholars Edition, Second Edition” 2009) Subsidies and Transfer Payments p. 942 (Originally published, 1962) - “Transfer spending or subsidies distort the market by coercively penalizing the efficient for the benefit of the inefficient. Subsidies prolonged the life of inefficient firms and prevent the flexibility of the market from fully satisfying consumer wants. The greater the extent of government subsidy, the more the market is prevented from working, the more resources are frozen in inefficient ways, and the lower will be the standard of living of everyone. Furthermore, the more government intervenes and subsidizes, the more cast conflict will be created in society, for individuals and groups will benefit only at one another's expense.”
 [3] “It is only the prospect of profit which directs production into those channels in which the demands of the consumer are best satisfied at least cost.” Ludwig Von Mises (1881-1973), SOCIALISM an Economic and Sociological Analysis (Liberty Fund Indianapolis 1981) chapter 6 p.116-119 The Organization of Production under Socialism
 

Find article highlighting another example of substantive opposition from local governments can significantly impact large-scale federal programs that break from statutory priorities and seek to govern by executive edict. 
  
 https://x.com/LandmarkMT1215/status/1878952735200153761
  
 USFS Withdraws Old Growth Forest Rule After Grassroots Opposition

 Nathan Descheemaeker
 @LandmarkMT1215
  
 On February 1, 2024, MtNRC, in cooperation with Boundary Line Foundation, submitted substantive comments opposing the National Old Growth Amendment Update. Yesterday, January 7, 2025, a notice was sent to interested parties informing them that the US Forest Service will not be publishing a final environmental impact statement. The notice says:
 "On December 20, 2023, the Forest Service published a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement for consistent land management plan direction for old-growth forest conditions across the National Forest System. On June 21, 2024, the Forest Service published the notice of availability of the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS). During the 90-day comment period that followed the publication of the DEIS, the Agency hosted virtual engagements, information sessions and regional field meetings across the country. Over 300,000 comments were received and analyzed. . . ."
  
 "Through a forthcoming Federal Register notice, the Agency has decided to withdraw the notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement and will not be publishing a final environmental impact statement."
  
 The Montana Natural Resource Coalition (MtNRC) submitted a report prepared by the Boundary Line Foundation (BLF) and Associates titled “Review of the Delegated Statutory  Responsibilities to the United States Forest Service for Forest Planning, Inventory,  Management, and Coordination with County Governments” in response to the  National Environmental Policy Act Notice of Intent (NOI) to Prepare an  Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
 The report opposing the USFS planning identified how the Old-growth amendments applied uniformly across virtually the entire forest system based on biodiversity objectives have significant federalism implications. It is a long-established fact that the:
 “… maintenance of national protection floors supplemented by states is unworkable because in contrast to air and water pollution control, there are no uniform standards that one can realistically apply to biodiversity in states as different as Alaska, Arizona and Florida.”
 Furthermore, there are legal implications with implementing such biodiversity objectives because:
 “… the national government must rely on powers, primarily land-use controls and water-rights administration, that are traditionally and firmly lodged within state and local governments.”[1]
 Many forest communities have been economically hamstrung by limiting or precluding access and utilization of mature timber sources for the wood products industry. This despite language in the Forest Service’s Organic Act of 1897, as echoed at 36 CFR § 221.3 Timber Management Planning:
 “Provide, so far as feasible, an even flow of national forest timber in order to facilitate the stabilization of communities and of opportunities for employment.” (Emphasis added)
 The central issue with conserving and enhancing old-growth conditions is succinctly summarized:
 “… the Agriculture Department said it will direct national forests across the country to adopt an “adaptive strategy” to protect old-growth forests, which would include new restrictions on timber harvesting and other policies to encourage the evolution of mature forests into old-growth characteristics.”[2] (Emphasis added)
  
 Another huge win for county governments and local communities who have been cut off from resources essential to their economic vitality. Its now time for the Trump administration to recalibrate the USFS back to its organic statutory mission.
 
  • Nathan and his family raise registered feeder calves, and he is a Research Specialist and Policy Analyst specializing in historical policy research, technical writing, and advocacy for property rights.
________________________________________________________________
 [1] A. Dan Tarlock, Biodiversity Federalism, 54 Md. L. Rev. 1315 (1995) Available
 [2]  E&E News Greenwire Biden admin eyes carbon capture boost from old growth forests, 12/19/23 Biden admin eyes carbon capture boost from old-growth forests - E&E News by POLITICO (eenews.net)at: http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/mlr/vol54/iss4/7
  
 Nathan Descheemaeker
 LandmarkResourceMT 
 406-366-2456
  
 "Unless bureaucracy is constantly resisted it breaks down representative government and overwhelms democracy. It ... sets up the pretense of having authority over everybody and being responsible to nobody"
 President Calvin Coolidge, MAY 15, 1926
  
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