Koch Republicans Advance Plan To Eliminate America’s National Parks

By: Rmusemore from Rmuse
Monday, October 12th, 2015, 9:38 am

It is hardly a secret that Republicans wholly-support and agree with their masters, the Koch brothers, that every sector of government has to be eliminated. In fact, Republicans so hate the government, that they deliberately find extremely successful, wildly popular, and revenue neutral programs to either underfund to prove government cannot work, or just do what comes naturally and destroy them with extreme prejudice.

There is a Koch brother mindset that Republicans willingly embrace that the United States government has no legal right to own land, and that the National Parks system and wilderness areas are abominations to the fossil fuel, mining, and logging industries’ profits. Without success in forcing the federal government to cede its ownership and protection of the American people’s National Parks, wilderness areas, and cultural heritage sites to the Koch brothers, Republicans did the next best thing and defunded the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).

Now that the Kochs own Congress and were able to install a willing anti-government Republican as Chairman of the House Natural Resources committee, they were thrilled to learn they succeeded in killing the LWCF in yet another step toward turning over government to corporate control. It is irrefutable that the LWCF is one of the most successful conservation programs in America’s history with no cost to taxpayers, and it is why it was crucial for the Koch brothers to score a win for themselves and jeopardize America’s national parks.

The Koch’s victory was in spite of alleged broad bipartisan support to keep the LWCF in operation, but since they own the entire Congress, the Kochs’ anti-government acolytes refused to reauthorize the program effectively killing it. What that means for the offshore oil and gas production fees funding LWCF is that Koch Republicans will shift LWCF funding into their favorite special interests such as partisan political campaigns against Hillary Clinton, subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, tax cuts for the rich and corporations, and of course the military industrial complex and Israel.

As head of the Natural Resources Committee, the Mormon Bishop marshaled support from other Koch sycophants on the far right who believe that the federal government is criminal in thinking it can own or preserve federal land for the American people. Bishop, like his Mormon cohort Cliven Bundy, is very anti-federal government and contends that like federally-owned land and national parks, any money collected from oil and gas producers belongs to his state to do with as it pleases. This in spite of Congress eliminating a bizarre requirement in 1970 that funding from offshore drilling goes to state projects that Republicans typically hand directly to the wealthy and corporations in the form of greater tax cuts.

What is somewhat surprising is that earlier this summer, dozens of representatives on both sides of the aisle signed on to a letter calling for more support for the perpetually underfunded program that has already conserved more than seven million acres for the American people to enjoy. LWCF purchases wildlife habitat, buys private inholdings within wildernesses and national parks, preserves cultural heritage sites, provides public access for fishing and hunting, and pays for urban parks, playgrounds and ball fields in communities across America. All of those benefits are anathema to Koch extremists running Congress, and it is noteworthy that if funding LWCF into perpetuity was allowed “a straight-up vote, reauthorization would pass both the House and Senate with large bipartisan majorities.” Reauthorizing LWCF will never be put up for a vote because the Kochs will not allow it.

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/10/12/koch-republicans-eliminate-national-parks.html