Spring 2022 Speaking Tour, No-Net-Loss, Crypto Crackdown
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Good afternoon,
For you newbies out there, welcome to Outsider on the Inside. I hope this dispatch from in and around the nation’s capital on underreported topics finds you well.
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Spring 2022 Speaking Tour
This spring, I’ll be traveling around the country to deliver talks on conservation and the Second Amendment.
I’ll be speaking at three university campuses and several conferences.
Here are tentative dates and locations I can share right now. Stay tuned for more details as they come.
Appalachian State University - Boone, NC: “Conservation is Conservative” Lecture - March 3, 2022 @ 6pm
Florida State University - Tallahassee, FL: “Conservation is Conservative” Lecture - March 10, 2022 @ 7pm
Deer Creek Lodge & Conference Center - Columbus, OH: Second Amendment Day Conference - April 9th, 2022 (All Day)
George Mason University - Fairfax, VA: “Capitalism Conserves” Lecture - April 20th, 2022 @ 7pm
Watch the announcement here:
Is the Biden Administration Negotiating Away Public Lands Access?
On February 15th, Sportsmen’s Alliance revealed the Biden administration is now engaging in potential “sue and settle” talks with Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), an anti-hunting organization and serial litigant. It relates to the opening of nearly 100 national wildlife refuges to new hunting and fishing opportunities in summer 2020 under the Trump administration.
An animal-rights group and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have announced settlement discussions over a lawsuit that could revoke hunting opportunities on nearly 100 National Wildlife Refuges nationwide. In November, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) filed suit over the 2020 expansion of hunting and fishing opportunities on 2.2 million acres within the refuge system. The litigious group alleges that hunting on refuges threatens endangered species due to hunters trampling critical habitat, through lead poisoning as a result of spent ammunition and because grizzly bears are mistakenly shot by hunters believing them to be black bears or in self-defense.
The lawsuit seemed a long shot given the 1997 National Wildlife Refuge Improvement Act, landmark legislation drafted and pushed through Congress by the Sportsmen’s Alliance, which ensured that hunting, fishing and trapping would occur on any refuge where it is compatible. The historic law has opened millions of acres to hunting as every Presidential administration since has touted expansion of opportunities within the system.
However, the surprise joint filing by the Biden Administration and CBD asking for a delay in the court proceedings while the two sides conduct settlement talks sends an alarming message to hunting groups that are preparing to intervene in the lawsuit to ensure the rights of sportsmen are protected. Should the administration reach an agreement, CBD would likely not have to spend a single legal dollar, as these settlements often include payment of legal fees using taxpayer dollars. Worse, any settlement will likely include restrictions or revocation of hunting opportunities. The Sportsmen’s Alliance and other conservation groups were offered no warning of the pending talks, nor offered a seat at the table.
In November 2021, CBD falsely claimed opening 147 wildlife refuges across 2.3 million acres of public lands to new hunting and fishing opportunities will lead to mass extinction of species. It also intentionally misinformed the public about hunting on U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lands (national fish hatcheries and national wildlife refuges).
“We’re going to court to ensure that our nation’s wildlife refuges actually provide refuge to endangered wildlife,” said Camila Cossío, a staff attorney at the Center. “The Fish and Wildlife Service is shrugging off the many risks that sport hunting and fishing pose to endangered animals, particularly from lead ammunition and tackle.”
CBD, unsurprisingly, has mastered the art of “sue and settle” - a practice described as “a federal agency agrees to a settlement agreement, in a lawsuit from special interest groups, to create priorities and rules outside of the normal rulemaking process.”
This abuse of the Equal Access to Justice Act has made groups like CBD filthy rich. It’s also hindered conservation laws (like the Endangered Species Act) from working as intended. How? '“Sue and settle” practices have kept endangered or threatened listed protections on fully-recovered grizzly bears and gray wolves, for instance, even after ESA thresholds for recovery were met.
MeatEater notes:
The Sportsman’s Alliance say they were shocked to discover that the Biden Administration and the CBD requested a delay in court proceedings while they discuss conditions of a settlement. The alliance and others were preparing to intervene in the suit but were provided no warning that it might be settled out of court and have no visibility into the discussions occurring now between the plaintiff and defendants. Hunters expect to lose opportunities on public lands if a settlement is reached, though other outcomes are possible. The named parties in the suit are USFWS Acting Director Martha Williams and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, both of whom have ties to the hunting community. The court-ordered stay in proceedings expires on April 8 so more information will be available then.
Can USFWS Director Martha Williams and Secretary Deb Haaland be trusted to safeguard hunter and angler interests? I’m not so sure they —particularly in the case of Haaland—will tell CBD to go pound sand.
I’d like to be proven wrong , but fear I won’t. Claiming Haaland has strong ties to the hunting community is, at best, a stretch and doesn’t instill confidence. After all, she just penned an op-ed for USA Today declaring opposition to state management of fully-recovered Lower-48 gray wolves.
As a congresswoman, Haaland signed onto the following anti-hunting legislation or boasted the following ties to anti-hunting groups:
Tribal Heritage and Grizzly Bear Protection Act (Co-Sponsor)
Anti-hunting group, WildEarth Guardians, wrote in 2021: “Rep. Haaland appeared in our video against trapping on public lands in 2018 and she delivered an inspirational welcoming address during Guardians’ virtual Gala this September.”
During her confirmation hearing in February 2021, Haaland refused to commit to advancing a No-Net-Loss policy if confirmed.
If Secretary Haaland and Director Williams don’t settle with CBD, I’ll applaud them. I’d love to be proven wrong. But I’m not optimistic.
Safari Club International is urging hunters to tell the Biden Interior Department to support its No Net Loss Campaign aimed at “maintaining the current level of hunting and fishing access on federal public lands across the country.”
Here’s how their petition reads:
Sign the "No-Net-Loss" petition and demand that the Biden Administration commits to a no-net-loss policy for hunting and fishing access on America’s public lands - meaning the Administration pledges to preserve current access to public lands for hunters and anglers around the country.
Committing to support a no-net-loss policy is committing to sound stewardship of our natural resources. Hunters and anglers are essential to the effective management of public land. Hunting license sales and federal taxes on a wide variety of hunting supplies contribute funds directly to state wildlife management. All of this stands to decline—with consequential losses for wildlife and habitat—if access to public lands for hunters and anglers is reduced.
Under these “sue and settle” talks, sportsmen and women won’t be able to weigh in on the matter. Par for the course for the Biden administration, which feigns support for true conservation and puts out mixed messaging.
But I digress.
Will Haaland and Williams uphold No-Net Loss or cede to CBD and radical preservationists? That remains to be been since we won’t know about the terms of settlement in CBD vs. USFWS until April 8th.
I’ll keep you posted on the matter here.
The Incoming Crypto Crackdown?
I wonder if this has to do with Canada’s crack down of cryptocurrency in wake of the Freedom Convoy…
Yesterday, Yahoo! News reported the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has formed a new digital currency unit, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) is set to create a new crypto czar position.
They explain:
The U.S. Justice Department has tapped a seasoned computer crimes prosecutor to lead its new national cryptocurrency enforcement team and announced on Thursday that the FBI is launching a unit for blockchain analysis and virtual asset seizure.
The creation of the FBI's "virtual asset exploitation" unit comes after the Justice Department's largest-ever financial seizure earlier this month. It charged a married New York couple with allegedly laundering bitcoins now valued at over $4.5 billion that were stolen in the 2016 hack of the digital currency exchange Bitfinex.
U.S. regulators under President Joe Biden have been ratcheting up their scrutiny of the crypto industry in the wake of a series of high-profile cyberattacks last year on the largest U.S. fuel pipeline network and the world's largest beef supplier. Ransomware groups often demand their fees in bitcoin.
On January 27th, Barrons reported the Biden administration will issue a “national security memorandum” in the coming weeks.
The Biden administration is preparing to release an executive action that will task federal agencies with regulating digital assets such as Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a matter of national security, a person familiar with the White House’s plan tells Barron’s.
The national security memorandum, expected to come in the next few weeks, would task parts of the government with analyzing digital assets and assembling a regulatory framework that covers cryptos, stablecoins, and NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, this person said.
The terms of the imminent E.O. are sparse, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Biden and co go all in to regulate digital currencies going forward.
While I don’t dapple in crypto/NFTs, I worry this effort could undermine decentralization. That would be a bad course of action.
Hopefully cooler heads prevail here…
Podcast Episodes You May Have Missed
Catch up on District of Conservation episodes below.
EP. 250
EP. 251
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—Gabriella