ACTION ALERT-MORON America's Great Outdoors Initiative

Thomas Jefferson once said, "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for a people of good conscience to remain silent". Many of us have remained silent. Now is a good time to speak up.

One look at the agency heads leading this makes one realize the amount of power being applied to this program.

- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson
- Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar
- White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley
- Agriculture Under Secretary Harris Sherman
- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Assistant Secretary Jo-Ellen Darcy

The reality is Recreation organizations need more people to speak up to provide the influence needed to change the direction of the America's Great Outdoors Initiative. Much as we might like to think that someone else can do the work, sometimes everyone needs to help, that time is now. One easy way you can help is to VOTE for IDEAS to help support your continued access to public lands.

Vote and Read more here . . . http://www.savethetrails.us/AGO-Vote.html

and here . . . http://www.doi.gov/americasgreatoutdoors/

Two minute action letter here . . . http://www.savethetrails.us/Default.aspx?PetitionID=47

Here’s a link with all the information you need to know about this initiative . . . http://www.sharetrails.org/public-lands/?section=AGOI it also includes links to various places where you can comment.

I sent the following letter to my Federal Public Servants in addition to voting in the “Ideas” link that is contained in the URL above, find yours here . . . http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/ and let them know your thoughts.

Feel free to use any of parts of my letter you'd like in creating yours!


“As an OHV enthusiast I believe that the President needs to include this form of recreation as a priority in his plan to reconnect Americans with the Outdoors and allow folks like me who were injured while serving OUR County and cannot walk into or near by "Wilderness" to access and enjoy OUR Public Lands too.

This initiative is partly motivated by a need to enhance recreational opportunities on public lands. But increased recreation opportunities will not flow from a whisk of a pen in Washington D.C. Any successful recreation management policy must be accompanied by adequate budget, staffing, and above all, management’s priority to achieve critical on-the-ground goals.

Federal agencies' allocation of budget, staff, and management effort should reflect the developing reality that outdoor recreation provides a greater good for more Americans than any other aspect of its multiple-use mandate. The time has come to make managed recreation the BLM and Forest Service’s top priority.

Prioritize all efforts on clearing the repair/maintenance/improvement backlog in the National Park Service before designating any new National Parks or other similar protective area designations. (The National Park Service alone estimates that it would need an extra $9.5 billion to clear a backlog of repairs and improvements.)

All too often "conservation" means reducing public access and recreational uses. The AGO Initiative should explore ways to enhance a diverse range of recreational uses, including motorized and non-motorized recreational uses, across federal, state and private lands.

Federal land managers too often limit or restrict public recreation activities. Federal land managers should focus on recreation friendly management plans that are not restrictive and embrace a wide range of diverse recreational uses, including motorized and non-motorized recreation.

The administration has prided itself in being open and transparent, yet Representative Rob Bishop and Representative Doc Hastings have not yet received a response to their requests for documents. It will benefit the outreach function of this Initiative if the Department of the Interior would respond to H. Res. 1406.

The new National Park Service management policy emphasis is on preservation of our National Parks. This limits land managers' options insofar as what recreation opportunities a Park may provide. The initiative should study a supplement to National Park management guidelines to emphasize providing a wide range of recreational uses for the visiting public. Similar supplemental guidance may be appropriate for the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.

The initiative and the public will benefit from a full understanding of the various public and private conservation efforts currently underway. Accurate information is critical for good decision making. Statements that state large areas of our nation's natural landscape have been lost to population growth and development, or that a changing climate and new sources of pollution are affecting wildlife and watersheds, must be put into an accurate context. The initiative must disclose how much land is being conserved. The initiative should work with the over 1,600 privately run land trusts to find out how much land has been protected in recent years. The initiative should disclose how much land is conserved via federal conservation efforts, such as the Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program. In addition, it would help to disclose how much federal dollars are being spent on the various conservation efforts. Finally, the initiative should disclose the conservation efforts underway via the Land and Resource Management Plans of units of the National Forest System, the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service.

Millions of American families enjoy motorized recreation. It often forms a bond between parents and their children as they experience the great outdoors together.

The OHV community supports conservation efforts including support of the “travel limited to designated roads, trails and areas” paradigm as outlined in the Forest Service travel management regulations and BLM’s planning directives. The OHV community also supports conservation through environmental review and analysis in route designation processes, as well as ongoing monitoring and maintenance of the OHV infrastructure. The OHV community supports conservation efforts by contributing substantial funds to implement OHV management and volunteers tens of thousands of man hours in volunteer work projects. Much of this funding is made available to federal land managers via state OHV programs. These programs exist today because years ago motorized recreationists voluntarily “taxed ourselves” via state OHV registration programs. Some of these funds are used to supplement the agencies' law enforcement efforts.

ATV and off-highway motorcycle riding encourages and promotes physical fitness. OHVs provide access to the Great Outdoors for Americans of all ages, shapes, and sizes.

I urge you to give serious consideration to the need for OHV Recreational opportunities in this initiative and the input of your constituents.”

Done

Foxfire wrote:

Done

Save The Trails, ARRA and American Landrights teamed up to post alerts recently asking people to VOTE for IDEAS to help ensure the President's Great Outdoor Initiative was about keeping public lands open to all forms of recreation, including Off Road Recreation. At the time the top rated IDEAS had mostly been about closing public lands, designating more inappropriate Wilderness Areas and National Monuments.

THAT HAS ALL CHANGED NOW DUE TO PEOPLE TAKING ACTION!!

More here . . . http://www.savethetrails.us/AGO-Vote.html

Page 1 of "All Ideas" . . .
http://ideas.usda.gov/ago/ideas.nsf/ProductMostRecent?OpenView&Start=1&Count=20

There are 19 pages of posts so far, many of the old ones on page 19 back through page 1 need further scrutiny and votes.

In reading many of the comments below the "ideas", the anti-access crowd is complaining that the OHV Community has "taken over" the site . . . good for us!

We need to be respectful, act like the Adults that we are and not respond in kind to inflammatory comments like this one left in response to the thoughts I posted . . .

"5) Alden Moffatt (27 Jul 2010)
It cracks me up to hear the OHV crowd use the disabled American argument to support their case for more OHV trails. In my opinion, all of you must be disabled. You better get off your asses and go hiking or your bodies will atrophe and all you'll be able to do is watch TV. You are lazy. You are lame. You wish that was a disability. For people who are truly disable, do you really want to be lumped in with these lazy lumps of fat who are using you as an excuse for their fat behavior."

You can find my submission here . . . http://ideas.usda.gov/ago/ideas.nsf/0/204B8D406AEA42FC8625776C00695B5C?OpenDocument . . . please promote it if it makes sense to you!

Keep it up folks, let's fight these pukes!

Just in case you haven’t seen or heard of this AGO Initiative and even if you have, it’s worth revisiting to reiterate that this has the real possibility of killing OHV Recreation as we know it, turning our expensive machines into lawn ornaments or perhaps relegating us to massively reduced Public Land opportunities, private properties and the few cramped SRVAs that remain.

TAKE ACTION!! Speak up now or face the possibility of parking your rig!!!

Promote the pro-access and multiple use ideas if they make sense to you. If you really want to get involved, demote the anti-access ideas and those which would put OUR Nation further in debt!

Page 1 of “All Ideas” . . . http://ideas.usda.gov/ago/ideas.nsf

The "anti-access" crowd has hit the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative (AGO) “Idea Jam” web site BIG TIME and we OHV users have lost all the ground we had a week ago.

If you want to continue using OUR Public Lands for OHV Recreation you’d better spend more time and effort up here than you do on the trail . . . http://ideas.usda.gov/ago/ideas.nsf/ProductMostRecent?openview&Start=1&Count=20 . . . they have!!!

Demote their crap, promote ours and perhaps put up some thoughtful ideas of your own or . . . KISS IT ALL GOOD-BYE!!!

Here is but one of a ton of anti-OHV “Ideas” . . .

http://ideas.usda.gov/ago/ideas.nsf/0/D7FB613AB46C67A48625777B005DC233?OpenDocument#commentsanc

If we allow this to continue without demotion, comment or submitting our own ideas, God help us!!!

I'd like to catch Alden Moffatt parked with his Mountain Bike along side of a large stinking mud hole when i went by.

I would even back up and apoligize.

wvyankee2 wrote:

I'd like to catch Alden Moffatt parked with his Mountain Bike along side of a large stinking mud hole when i went by.

I would even back up and apoligize.

You'd have to turn your rig into a hang glider since I think he does more of that than biking . . . one thing is for sure . . . he is HIGH!!!

“This whole AGOI smacks of predetermined and socially engineered outcome (especially the public meetings) a means of justifying action on the part of this administration if you will.

None-the-less, we need to stay as involved as we can as the process follows its course.”

Please get involved in this battle, demote the bad and promote pro-OHV access at . . . http://ideas.usda.gov/ago/ideas.nsf

Bob



America's Great Outdoors / Treasured Landscape Update

"The AGO Initiative was featured in a recent opinion piece by conservative blogger and best selling author Michelle Malkin...

How Obama is locking up our land
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate

http://michellemalkin.com/2010/08/14/how-obama-is-locking-up-our-land/

Here is some news on the Treasured Landscapes, Interior Secretary Kan Salazar's environmentalist utopian vision for the BLM. This is from “The Pulse-of Colorado Farm Bureau blog...

Complete Federal Land Grab Document Released
http://cofarmbureaublog.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/complete-federal-land-grab-document-released/

And some more national news, Treasured Landscape; an opinion from the editors at the Washington Times.

DEMINT: White House land grab
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/02/white-house-land-grab/

I need to take issue with something they say about the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument:

One of the monuments President Clinton created was the Grande Staircase-Escalante in Utah, where 135,000 acres of land were leased for oil and gas and about 65,000 barrels of oil were produced each year from five active wells. But, President Clinton put an end to developing those resources.

All that's true, but what the Washington Times doesn't note is that Clinton's Monument ended plans to develop the Kaparowitz plateau coal reserves. This is one of the largest deposits of low sulfur – high btu coal (means: clean burning) in the world. Estimates of the value range in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Just sayin...."

There are now 46 pages of “Ideas” and thousands of “Comments”, if you aren’t involved you will suffer the consequences!

On it!!!!

Man there are a lot of angry people!!!!!

Big-R wrote:

On it!!!!

Man there are a lot of angry people!!!!!

Yeah, and I am one of them! Would you like to join the small group of us who are doing a coordinated banging on them?

We use pro-OHV terms as well as a disinformation tact to confuse them . . . here's one example of a disinformation submission I made to draw out "their" dark side! Be sure to read my final comment!!!

http://ideas.usda.gov/ago/ideas.nsf/0/4D99ACD9D5A5BD2A86257784005BB72F?OpenDocument

27 promote........... Wow! Surely they did not read the whole thing...... Surely!

Big-R wrote:

27 promote........... Wow! Surely they did not read the whole thing...... Surely!

Whether they read the whole thing or not, it just shows what kind of people we are fighting!!!

Weigh In to Encourage Your Members to Reject Omnibus Approach

As you may recall, last year Congress approved a massive omnibus public lands bill that cobbled more than 160 separate pieces of legislation into one massive bill. The bill permanently eliminated the potential for motorized recreation on more than two million acres of public lands that were designated as wilderness in nine states. In addition, the package added three new national park units, a new national monument, three new national conservation areas, more than 1,000 miles of national wild and scenic rivers and four new national trails. Also signed into law as a part of the omnibus package was the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) Act, which is currently being used to limit motorized access on Bureau of Land Management lands.

Now Congress is considering creating another public lands omnibus package. Key Members of Congress have indicated that they would like an omnibus this year and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has made it clear that he would like Congress to move one as well.

It is important that you contact your Members of Congress and key Congressional leaders to let them know you oppose a new massive omnibus public lands law and that a repeat of the 2009 law will mean more restrictions to access.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link below to urge your Members and key Congressional leaders to oppose a massive omnibus bill in favor of ensuring that all public lands bills have hearings to allow for full local input.

https://secure3.convio.net/arra/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=241

A Report will be given to the President next month showing the Top Rated Ideas, so we have less than a month to Take Back the High Ground and be sure the Ideas we like are on top.

We can easily do this; after all we are the majority. So now it is time to show them they awakened the sleeping giant. Please go to the site . . . http://ideas.usda.gov/ago/ideas.nsf . . . and see for yourself.

PLEASE VOTE FOR (PROMOTE) any IDEAS you think are GOOD and (DEMOTE) any IDEAS you think are BAD.

Here is a list of IDEAS to PROMOTE and DEMOTE
http://www.savethetrails.us/AGO-Vote.html

Be the kind of people who make things happen, not those who stand around wondering what happened.

Demoting the Top “Greenie Innovator’s” Ideas Made Easy

You may already know this but here’s how to DEMOTE (or PROMOTE) every idea posted by anyone.

I’m using “Top Innovators” as an example because they can be found listed down the right hand side of the “Main” or “Home” AGOI page below the “What’s Hot” topics or by clicking on the “Top Innovators” choice at the top of the main screen here . . . http://ideas.usda.gov/ago/ideas.nsf/ . . . but you can group anyone’s “Ideas” for nuking (DEMOTION) using this simple method.

From the “Top Innovators” list pick your favorite ahat by clicking on their name as listed which will bring up their user “Profile”. Select “Ideas” from the choices presented under the innovators name and let the fun begin!!!

Obviously, this can also be used to “PROMOTE” all the ideas of OHV FRIENDLY folks you may find and works in the “All Ideas” or any of the four “theme” areas the same way.

Hint: On the “Main” or “Home Page” most of the people listed BELOW OUR OHV FRIENDLY “Top Innovator” Chis Horgan who is with the OHV FRIENDLY organization “Save The Trails” . . . http://www.savethetrails.us/ . . . are the Green enemas (look quickly at a few ideas to be sure).

Enjoy!!!

There is little time remaining to cast your vote to preserve OHV access. The AGOI site will be shut down in less than ten days and the results will be presented to POTUS November 15th.

This conservation backed movement put in place by the Obama Administration must be stopped!

Honestly, it will take less than two minutes once you complete the simple site registration process to PROMOTE the Pro-OHV “Ideas” on the main page. If you have some spare time while you are there, DEMOTE the Pro-Greenie ideas contained on the same page.

There will be a bunch of pissed off politicians sitting around after November 2nd without a job, however they will still have the opportunity and power to pass very important legislation waiting before them, some of which could result in the permanent loss of access to millions more acres of YOUR PUBLIC LAND. The “green crew” is counting on these disgruntled jobless bottom feeders to do their bidding in exchange for a final cash handout or job offer from their powerful lobbyists.

We need to make our pro-access OHV voices heard loud and clear where ever the opportunity presents itself starting with the Presidents AGOI web site, the November 2nd election of course and by continuing to contact our Representatives in the House and Senate (whether you voted them out or not).

The majority of Americans are tired of our Government running every facet of our lives, mad as hell about politics as usual and the career politicians along with newly elected officials know this. They now realize that they had better start paying attention to WE THE PEOPLE if they want to keep their sweet jobs, so what better time to give them a piece of your mind?

Four days left to make your voice heard!

This is suppose to be the last day folks so please get up there and vote.

The greenies only posted one new idea yesterday and just a couple the day before.

They may make one final assault to demote our Pro-OHV ideas that are winning so if you haven't already done it . . . please take a few minutes to at least promote those ideas under "Hot Topics" on the right hand side of the main page at . . . http://ideas.usda.gov/ago/ideas.nsf/

Our Public Servants may leave the site up through the calendar month or beyond so keep checking in to vote.

Thank you for helping in the fight for continued access to OUR PUBLIC LANDS.