The Reid Energy Bill: Another Government Land Grab

Rob Gordon / July 30, 2010

The all-too-familiar idea “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste” has reared its head in Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D–NV) Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act of 2010. In addition to proposing hurdles high enough to trip efforts to develop energy resources in the Gulf of Mexico, the proposal would gift to the greens one of their long sought desires: a full pot of money in the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LCWF). It would be a big pot of cash that can be spent “without further appropriation” to, among other things, gobble up more private property.

Similar provisions are contained in the House’s Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources Act of 2009 (CLEAR Act). Structuring such a perpetual funding machine is one of the many recommendations the green community made to the Obama Administration in “Transition to Green: Leading the Way to a Healthy Environment, a Green Economy and a Sustainable Future.” (more…)