Cut DOI (Department Of Interior) with a meat axe.

We can easily eliminate ninety percent of Interior bureaucracy when we cut DOI. 

Vic Biorseth, OWM; Saturday, October 12, 2013
http://www.CatholicAmericanThinker.com

And better than 90% of our Department Of the Interior is out of scope, extra-Constitutional and unnecessary.  There is redundancy and duplication of effort with other federal level bureaus and departments, and wide areas of operation that would be better handled by states, Indian Reservations, local governments or the private sector. 

First, to refresh our memories on how America works under the Constitution, let us recall Article I Section 1 of our Constitution:

Note that the first word in that sentence is "All".  That means, no exceptions.  No federal level laws may originate or be created other than by act of Congress. 

Second, let us call to mind Article I Section 8 of our Constitution, which gives us the limited and enumerated legislative powers of our Congress - the actual scope and legislative limits set by the Constitution on the federal government.  It says, to Senators and to Representatives, beyond these limits you may not go. 

Keeping our Constitutional limitations in mind, lets look at the organization of our Department of the Interior. 

• Secretary of the Interior
  
• Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management, and Budget
  
• Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Safety, Resource Protection and Emergency Services (DAS-PRE) Office of Law Enforcement and Security (OLES)Office of Emergency Management (OEM)Office of the Inspector General (OIG)
• Bureau of Indian Affairs
• Bureau of Land Management
• Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement
• Bureau of Reclamation
• Federal Executive Boards
• Interior Museum
• National Park Service
• Office of Insular Affairs
• Office of Surface Mining
• United States Fish and Wildlife Service
• United States Geological Survey

Regarding the Bureau of Indian Affairs:  American Indians should not need to be "taken care of" by any government bureaucracy.  Reservations should be turned into more autonomous entities, like States, with their own tribal governments exercising their own legislating and taxing authority. They could model their governments after the existing States, with the development of their own Constitutions, recognizing that they are still within the boundaries of States, of which they are citizens.  If they were wise, they would choose the Fair Tax over all other forms of taxation within the Reservations. 

Existing federal government licensing, leasing and royalty arrangements with private mining, drilling, timber harvesting, etc., on Reservation land, should be turned over to tribal governments on the reservations.  The Indians should be able to run the operations themselves, or license and lease the operations to private industry and collect royalties, at their option.  Indian trust lands, resources, assets and anything else held in trust should be turned over to the tribal governments. 

The bureau should be shut down as soon as practicality allows. 

Regarding the Bureau of Land Management:  The "Public Lands" owned by the federal government should be freely granted, given and deeded to the States and/or Indian Reservations in which it rests.  The "Subsurface Mineral Estate" underlying federal, state and private lands should be freely granted, given and deeded to the states, reservations and private owners, within whose boundaries it rests. 

The only lands the federal government should retain would be those lands needed and currently employed for the purposes of military bases, fascilities and live-fire ranges.  Recreational activities currently regulated by the bureau could and should be regulated by the states and/or reservations.  Similarly, activities such as logging, mining, fracking, etc., would be better managed by state and reservation government than by the the federal government. 

BLM Office of Law Enforcement and Security is absolutely unnecessary.  State, reservation and local governments can handle their own law enforcement and security.  

If the states and/or reservations want to do it, they can continue to fund "renewable energy" projects like wind farms and biodegradable fuels at their own expense, and risk, win lose or draw. 

Regarding the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement:  Oil, natural gas and other minerals available beneath the waters of the continental shelf, and any waters within or surrounding America should be freely granted, given and deeded to the closest states within a 50 mile limit boundary around America.  Only those ocean waters outside the 50 mile boundary should remain under the jurisdiction of BOEMRE.  Licensing, leasing, enforcing and environmental protection authority for production of oil, natural gas and other minerals within the 50 mile limit should be turned over to the states. 

Unemployed BOEMRE workers could apply for similar jobs with the states they have been empoverishing. 

Regarding the Bureau of Reclamation:  Federally constructed and maintained dams and hydro-electric plants should be freely granted, given and deeded to state and/or reservation governments. 

Unemployed bureau workers could apply for similar jobs with the states or reservations. 

Regarding the Federal Executive Boards:  There is no excuse for the existence of this board.  It is supposed to coordinate various outside Washington bureaucratic activities and increase efficiency.  Bureaucracies government agencies are almost definitively inefficient; making a bureaucracy to increase the efficiency of other bureaucracies is just an exercise in bureaucratic stupidity. 

Regarding the Interior Museum:  The museum should be privatized or incorporated into the Smithsonian. 

Regarding the National Park Service:  All national parks should be freely granted, given and deeded to the states and/or Indian reservations in which they are located.  There is nothing in Article 1 section 8 about any parks; President Theodore Roosevelt was way out of bounds here, regardless of any emotional attachments and heartfelt responsibility for majestic and scenic areas.  The states, reservations and localities are far better suited to caring for, preserving and running natural treasures and parklands that exist within their own domains. 

Any unemployed federal rangers or other federal employees may apply for similar jobs with the states or reservations. 

Regarding the Office of Insular Affairs:  This is the office that "administers" Island possessions such as American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, US Virgin Islands, etc. 

Regarding the Office of Surface Mining:  Pursuant to the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, a per ton fee is collected from miners ostensibly to fund a trust that finances the following:

1. Setting environmental standards;
   
2. Regulation of active mines;
3. Reclamation of lands damaged by surface mining and reclamation of abandoned mines;
4. Providing mining with technical assistance, training and the development of new mining technologies.
5. Miniimizing environmental impact. 
   

All of these are areas not only out of scope and outside the Constitutional limitations of the federal government, but they are beyond the competence level of the federal government to properly accomplish.  This office should be closed and the responsibilities returned to where they originated, which would be the states, reservations, localities and private ownership where the mines reside, whether operational or closed.  Local governments are more logically disposed to reclaim or restore previously mined lands than Washington DC, and they are more logically disposed to make their own regulations and operational guidelines than the federal government, win lose or draw. 

Regarding the United States Fish and Wildlife Service:  If fish, wildlife and habitat need to be "managed" at all, they do not need to be managed from Washington DC.  The United States, individually, and the Indian Reservations are far better qualified and more properly inclined to properly manage their own fish, wildlife and habitat without outside assistance.  Similarly, the States and the Reservations have no need for any federal law enforcement agencies to enforce fish, wildlife and habitat laws in local areas.  That's what local law enforcement and fish and game wardens are for. 

Local governments can invent their own bogus endangered species lists and micro-manage their citizenry accordingly, and can "reclaim" desert areas as "wetlands" prohibiting or controlling citizen use of them, at their own political risk, win lose or draw. 

This service should be shut down. 

Regarding the United States Geological Survey:  The mission of this bureaucracy was accomplished after the Louisiana Purchase.  It has no further reason to exist, and should be shut down. 

How do you just shut down all these sub-bureaucracies and eliminate the legislated laws or valid regulations that created them?

The same way the Supreme Court did in Maybury v. Madison - by declaring it null, void, and no law, because it is a violation of the Constitution that the Congress, the President and the Court are all sworn to uphold and protect.  If the Court can do it, so can the Presidency, and so can the Congress.  There is nothing special about the Court in regards to guardianship of the Constitution.  We have three co-equal branches of government; one to legislate, one to execute and one to adjudicate.  None of them have any superior interpretive authority over the Constitution.  All are sworn in their oaths of office to uphold and defend the Constitution as written.  Here's what Jefferson thought about it:

But it's never been done that way, you say.  Well, neither was Judicial Review ever done by the Court before Maybury v. Madison.  That's what made it a legal precedent.  There is absolutely no reason that the Presidency and the Congress, whether acting together or separately, could not establish the exact same precedent, of Congressional Review and/or Presidential Review, in setting aside un-Constitutional law as no law, from that day forward. 

All that would be required would be a Congress and/or a President with the love of Constitution and the nerve to do it. 

A very tall order, these days. 

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Reference Material

Culture=Religion+Politics;  Who Are We?  Vic Biorseth

The Brilliantly Conceived Organization of the USA;  Vic Biorseth

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Date:  Tue Oct 15 23:48:09 2013
From:  Alice M.
Email:   
Location:  Spokane
Comment: 

What qualifies you to decide what's constitutional and what's not constitutional?

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Date:  Wed Oct 16 05:28:02 2013
From:  Vic Biorseth
Comment:  

The exact same two things that qualified Abraham Lincoln (who never went to law school) to practice law:

1. I read, write and speak English fluently.
2. The Constitution is written down in English.
   

Regards,

Vic

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Date:   Wed  Oct 29 2014
From:  Vic Biorseth
Comment:  

Changes pursuant to changing the website URL and name from 
Thinking Catholic Strategic Center to
Catholic American Thinker.

Pulled the trigger on the 301 MOVE IT option June 1, 2014. Working my way through all the webpages.  . 

Regards,

Vic

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