HOME / MISSION / WHO WE ARE / PURPOSE / WHITE PAPERS / LINKS

LAWS AND REGULATIONS / CURRENT ISSUES / E-MAIL ADDRESSES / MEMBERSHIP

NATURAL RESOURCE AND LAND PLANNING UNDER THE COUNTY GOVERNMENT MOVEMENT

The County Government Movement has grown out of the comprehensive land use planning approach implemented by Catron County, New Mexico. This movement is a grassroots response to an ever growing federal bureaucracy which has strayed well beyond, and even violates, the provisions of the Constitution established by our Founding Fathers.

The citizens of our Nation who are behind the movement come from all walks of life. They love the land and want to ensure that the land will be managed for long term production of both amenities and commodities which are important to the citizens of our nation. Their customs and cultures have been tied to the land for generations, even hundreds of years, and their survival is dependent upon a stable economy which serves as a protective shield for these customs and cultures.

The survival of these citizens is now being threatened by encroaching federal bureaucracies who are managing the land, not by proper scientific principles which will preserve the physical environment and the customs and cultures of our citizens, but in accordance with political pressures applied by unqualified activists who call themselves environmentalists. The management practices of these agencies follow a meandering path which never connects with their stated management direction or even legal mandates.

In addition to the agencies’ lack of proper management direction, they have a growing arrogance, attitude of supremacy, and disdain for citizens in general, especially those of rural local communities who are dependent upon the land for their survival. These attitudes have been allowed to grow because there has been no mechanism to hold the agencies accountable directly to the people.

The Role of County Governments

The County Government Movement takes its name from the premise that in county government lies our hope for correcting the ills which have beset this country through the encroaching federal bureaucracies. The movement is grounded upon the principle emphasized by our Founding Fathers that government derives its authority from the people, who thus are the sovereigns of the government, and the governmental unit which is closest to the people is the county government. In this movement, county governments are learning how to go beyond their traditional roles as record keepers, road maintainers, and landfill operators to fulfill their responsibility to protect the environment of their county—both human and physical. They are learning how to serve as watchdogs over federal land and natural resource management agencies to ensure that they preserve local customs and culture in their land management actions.

Protection of Customs & Culture

County governments are charged under state law “to provide for the safety, preserve the health, promote the prosperity, and improve the morals, order, comfort, and convenience of...” their citizens. Thus, County Governments are responsible for protecting the very fabric—the environment—of their county which is based on generations-old land use customs and cultures of the people. Culture and customs are defined as follows:

Culture is how people pursue and realize their basic beliefs and values. The people are inseparable from their culture. Their culture stems from a complex web of land uses, practices, values, and beliefs.

Customs are the way people implement their culture—the way they traditionally use the land, make a living, and act toward each other. Customs are the visible and tangible manifestations of the shared beliefs that binds a group of people into a community. In law, customs consist of “long established practice or usage, which constitutes the unwritten law, and long consent to which gives it authority. Customs are general, which extend over a state or kingdom, and particular, which are limited to a city or district.”

The fabric of each county is based on the land use customs and cultures of its people. These customs and cultures must not be destroyed unless sound scientific studies show that the natural resources cannot provide the necessary production levels to sustain the traditional land uses. Also they must not be destroyed by green activist organizations who are working on the federal agencies in an attempt to stop all productive uses of the land.

Joint Land Use Planning—County Governments & Federal Agencies

Federal agencies are mandated by federal laws and regulations to work with county governments to protect the local customs and culture. For example:

Federal agencies are required to preserve important cultural aspects of our national heritage under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

The Council for Environmental Quality (CEQ) regulations (resulting from NEPA) require federal agencies to “...restore and enhance the quality of the human environment and avoid or minimize any possible adverse effects ...upon the quality of the human environment...”

In addition, federal agencies are directed to coordinate and conduct joint planning with local county governments under the CEQ regulations. Joint planning means that county governments are involved as joint lead agencies with the federal agencies in the beginning stages of the planning process. The jurisdictions and purposes of the joint planning are as follows:

The federal agencies have jurisdiction to manage National Forest lands for products and services to meet the needs of the nation—they have final decision making authority, insofar as they abide by the law.

The county governments, as local governmental bodies, have jurisdiction to protect the health, safety, economic welfare, and rights of their citizens—they must ensure that the county’s customs, culture, and economic stability, as defined by the people, are protected.

The county’s role in the planning process is to provide scientifically sound resource management recommendations and alternatives which will ensure the protection of (or mitigation of adverse impacts to) the local customs, culture, and economic stability.

Thus county governments are not just a “public” in the planning process, but are local governmental land management agencies with responsibilities for environmental protection; as such they must be included on an equal basis in the federal planning process. They provide direct, up front planning information to the federal agencies to ensure that federal actions will not bring about adverse socioeconomic impacts to the local communities.

How Citizens Initiate a County Comprehensive Land Use Plan

The development of a Comprehensive Land Use Plan like that adopted by Catron County, New Mexico, must begin with concerned citizens. Citizens representing all industries and interests in the county form a land use committee for the purpose of preparing and submitting a petition to the County Government requesting that they initiate the process to develop a comprehensive land use plan. The result of this effort is a Comprehensive Land Use Plan which permits the County Government to be involved in joint planning and joint preparation of environmental assessments and impact statements so it can ensure the protection of the county’s customs, cultures, and economic stability.

Once the land plan is adopted, the County Government takes on its new role under the Comprehensive Plan, as duly elected representatives of the people, to act within the bounds set by law and in accordance with the principles of our Founding Fathers to protect the customs, cultures, and economic stability of its citizens. The County Government provides the mechanism for people to get involved in holding the federal agencies accountable for their actions at a grassroots level.

Summary—Hope for the Future

The County Government Movement is based on proper principles—the principles of integrity, adherence to law, separation of powers, small federal government, and self-governance as defined by our Founding Fathers. As the federal agencies have grown in their size, their disregard for the law, and their disdain for productive uses of the land, there has grown a slow burning anger in the people of Western rural America as they have lived under the threats (and often actuality) of seeing their very way of life being destroyed. The hope of being able to preserve long standing customs and cultures provided by the County Government Movement has forestalled much violence. If the County Government Movement doesn’t flourish, then where else can they find hope? Certainly not through large government bureaucracies.

Our hope for a quality life in the future lies in the County Government Movement, for it has as its basis the principles and foundation upon which this nation was created.