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Westward (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is guest column written by Brian Sussman, bestselling author of Eco-Tyranny: How the Left’s Green Agenda Will Dismantle America.

Imagine owning a portfolio valued at an unfathomable fortune, and yet you’re bankrupt. Government laws are preventing you from tapping your assets.

There’s no need to envision such a scenario, because as an American, it’s a reality—you’ve been hustled by a federal government beholden to the green agenda.

The feds now own nearly 700 million acres of property; land brimming with natural resources vital to our founding principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The tragedy is our government is purposefully keeping the bulk of those resources—oil, natural gas, minerals, timber and water—out of our reach.

And the government wants to control even more.

Federal land ownership was never the intention of this nation’s founders. Other than land necessary to maintain a limited, central government, the first Continental Congress recognized that such owning land, and the associated natural resources, would offer a government too much power; after all, a tyrannical future regime could decide to withhold those resources from the people. So concerned were they about this issue, that in October 1780, even prior to the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, the Congress adopted a general policy for administering any North American land transferred to the Federal Government:

The lands were to be “disposed of for the common benefit of the United States,” and were to be “settled and formed into distinct republican States, which shall become members of the Federal Union, and shall have the same rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence, as the other States….” Additionally, the lands were to “be granted and settled at such times and under such regulations as shall hereafter be agreed on by the United States in Congress assembled…”

Observe how far we’ve drifted from the original intent of our founders. We now have national parks, forests, wildlife areas, marine sanctuaries, wetlands, refuges, as well as national monuments and landscapes. While many argue the various states would be more appropriate owners of the current federal lands, it’s the latter two—monuments and landscapes—that have become the favorite tools of environmental activists for placing America’s resources off limits for harvest.   The executive branch has been granted the power to declare national monuments via the 1906 Antiquities Act, pushed by President Theodore Roosevelt to preserve Native American dwellings, archeological sites, and oddities of nature such as Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, and the Petrified Forest in Arizona. The Act proclaims,





Since these 140-million acres are a myriad of parcels scattered throughout the nation, the DOI plans to “pursue a program of land consolidation to address its checker-boarded land…seek to acquire properties adjacent to its current holdings, if needed to preserve ecosystem integrity, and attempt to divest itself of the scattered and low-value landholdings that it has identified for disposal….”

In other words, the Obama administration draft seeks to sell low-valued federal land, void of natural resources, and purchase more lucrative private property to cobble together a colossal new federal estate, which will not only be off-limits to development of natural resources, but off-limits to you. According to the draft, the proposed treasured landscapes will exist “without the trappings of visitor centers and other man-made improvements…” (a scanned copy of the draft, complete with the markings of an unidentified DOI mastermind, is included in the Appendix of Eco-Tyranny).  In twenty years the U.S. will have 50 million additional residents; in forty years another 50 million will be added to that. In order to maintain our pursuit of happiness we must have the ability to, responsibly, harvest our resources. We the People own over 2.6 trillion barrels of technically recoverable oil, and 2,543 trillion cubic feet of natural gas— enough to run our country independent of OPEC, Canada or Mexico—well into the next century.

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  • From the limited information provided from this article about the book, it seems as though the author does not understand the true value of wild areas. He is also spouting the false notion that the United States has over two trillion barrels of recoverable oil. If the author is going to say that the US has two trillion barrels of oil, he must prove it with at least some sort of geological study.

    The inability of the author to understand basic science is not surprising, considering his background. To understand why the US does not have two trillion barrels of oil reserves, you can read this.


  • procan procan 2 years ago

    He specified it as “technically recoverable oil”, and not economically recoverable, so “technically” he is correct, but still deceiving.

    Here’s the difference:

    Technically recoverable oil: is oil that could be recovered if the cost of production was completely ignored, money was not an issue, and we posessed futuristic technology allowing us to get at 100% of the oil in the pore space of the rock.

    Economically recoverable oil: is oil that can be recovered with current technology at a cost that allows for profit at current oil prices.

  • Jesus Morales Jesus Morales 2 years ago

    Thanks for pointing this kind of thing out. Hopefully our next President (Romney all the way!) will be a little more reasonable when it comes to energy policy.

  • Mr. Sussman,

    I believe that your points are entirely incorrect.

    1) You wrote:”We need a program to utilize federal lands to create more dams, reservoirs, and coastal desalinization plants, lest we starve our agriculture sector of it’s lifeblood and live with perpetual personal water rationing.”

    This is beyond naive. Ocean water desalination is fantastically expensive, about 1,000 USD/Acre-Foot. An agricultural operation can pump water from the ground for around 100 USD/AF or less. Further, most farms are not near the ocean so the water would have to be pump from the ocean to the farms, add much cost. Ocean water desalination will not be a viable source of water for agriculture for decades.

    Beyond that, there are few, if any, new opportunities for the construction of new dams. Just about every river that can be effectively dammed, has been. Further, even if there were a few that could be built, it is not as if simply building a dam creates new water resources. Most of the *water rights* in the United States on rivers have allocated through adjudication. Simply throwing a new dam onto a river with a diversion would impair some down stream users prior right to use that water.

    2) You also wrote:”We the People own over 2.6 trillion barrels of technically recoverable oil, and 2,543 trillion cubic feet of natural gas— enough to run our country independent of OPEC, Canada or Mexico—well into the next century.”

    This is also wildly naive (or cynically manipulative). The US petroleum production has been declining for decades. In 1970 product was at 9.6 million barrels per day while in 2010 it was 5.6.[1]. The idea that there are huge reserves of untapped and readily accessible oil is not supported by the evidence.

    Moreover, the types of untapped petroleum that can be found are more expensive to develop and refine. Sweet light crude oil yields the most gallons of gasoline per barrel of oil and since it has low viscosity and low density, it is comparatively inexpensive to pump, transport, and refine. World production of sweet light crude oils occurred a few years ago. The majority new oil being developed are heavy, sour crude oils which have a high sulfur content, high viscosity, and high density. These generally require enhanced oil recovery techniques such as gas (CO2) injection, chemical injection, microbial injection, cyclic steam injection, steam flooding, and fire flooding. It is thus much more expensive to develop and utilize heavy crude fields. Further the number of gallons of gasoline produced per barrel heavy crude oil is lower than for light crude oils. Oil sands and shale oil are even worse in this regard. New petroleum sources are going to be smaller in volume and more expensive to produce and yield less gasoline but unit developed.

    Further, heavy crude oils do not produce as much gasoline or fuel oil as light crude oil. For example a light crude might have a 3-2-1 “crack spread”, or 3 barrels of crude oil produces 2 barrels of gasoline and 1 barrel of heating oil (this is a bit of an over simplification but it will do for this blog). A heavy crude oil might have a crack spread of 5-2-1 or worse. So producing more crude oil, if it is heavy crude oil, will not result automatically in more gasoline or other high value end products.




    Bitumen is also not a very good source for gasoline as it has a very low “crack spread”. Every crude petroleum source material can produce so many gallons of gasoline and other distillates per barrel.WCS has a lower crack spread and as result sells for much less than other products, and thus produces fewer gallons of gasoline and fuel oil, and thus has lower market prices. For example, West Texas Intermediate (WTI), a bench mark light crude oil, had an average price in 2011 of about 95 USD/bbl while WCS averaged arouhg 76 USD/bbl remembering that WCS is only a partially bitumen.

    The point of all of this is that just because there is a “proven reserve” of so-many “barrels of crude” that could be extracted from North America is not the same as if there an equivalent number of barrels of WTI or Saudi oil. On a per barrel basis, much less gasoline or heating oil will be produced. Increasing oil sand production will not necessarily increase gasoline production.

    The bottom line is that your arguments are wildly inaccurate and completely misleading.


  • rebecca vogel rebecca vogel 2 years ago

    its called UN agenda 21— Read it

  • procan procan 2 years ago

    EOR (enhanced oil recovery) is not used specifically for heavy crude recovery. Most of these techniques are used as secondary or enhanced methods to stimulate light oil production after the formation pressure of the rock has declined significantly. They are not used exclusively for heavy oil recovery.

    Kerogens and bitumens are oil, just in different stages of maturity. Karogen is immature oil, and is organic material that, when exposed to high pressures and temperatures over a period of time, produce oil. There are different Karogen types depending on the organic material (plant/animal) which produce either oil, gas, or both.

    Bitumen is overmature oil. It’s been under pressure and high temperature for too long, so has turned to much much heavier oil. Light oil is just oil that has been under high pressure and temperature for the perfect amount of time. Thermal cracking of the bitumen is a process that is used to break long hydrocarbon chains into smaller ones, and separate it into different products. The same process is used for light oils as well.

    And there is light oil in oil shale. If there wasn’t, then I would not have a job. Karogens are present in oil shale because it is the source rock (the rock containing the plant and animal materials that were put under high pressure and temperature) from which oil migrated into overlying reservoir rock during the cooking process. Conventional oil is just oil found in the overlying reservoir rock, where oil was “conventially” found and produced from. Unconventional oil is oil that is NOT found in the “conventional places” (reservoir rock). The oil produced from shale is oil that was trapped in the sources rock and did not migrate into the reservoir rock.

  • David Jenkins David Jenkins 2 years ago

    The great conservative author Russell Kirk wrote in his book The Conservative Mind:


    Mr. Helman is peddling a radical “live for today” ideology devoid of a responsible commitment to natural resource stewardship. He appears to value only money and appreciates nature for its profit potential without regard for the other values it provides–both physical and spiritual.

    The amount of lands protected to help ensure our quality of life and the health of (as President Reagan called it) this magical planet God has given us is miniscule compared to the land available for development. To imply otherwise is factually wrong. Is he misinformed or simply trying to mislead? As Reagan also said “facts are stubborn things.” Mr. Helman’s radicalism is not conservative at all.

  • b b 2 years ago

    Pew is already trying to push legislation both for BLM and for 3.7 million acres of new wilderness.


    If they do not get that, they will go for National Monument Designation

  • fredlinn fredlinn 2 years ago

    ———” The tragedy is our government is purposefully keeping the bulk of those resources—oil, natural gas, minerals, timber and water—out of our reach.”——–

    Thinking process STRAIGHT out of the 19th Century.

    This is the 21st Century.

  • The bottom line to refute all Greenies is that humans are in CONTROL of this planet, we are NOT animals and we NEED to understand that genocide is not the answer. You people make me nauseous with your “humans are bad” and population reduction BS. Go suck an egg. I’ll go wherever I want and live however I want regardless of what a bunch of genocidal maniacs think. You’re all evil, everyone of you because you intent is the extinction of mankind. We should be populating the solar system by now, but you’re so hung up on “mother earth” that we’ll never get the chance. Entropy is FALSE!!!

  • postman postman 2 years ago

    Apparently, the author’s detractors must be students only of AHA-certified history; otherwise, they wouldn’t be upset with him. Most reasonable and sincere environmentalists would be absolutely horrified if they had any idea of the real “product” that they’ve been *tricked* into pushing. If people are so willing to sacrifice truth at the altar of their beliefs, they shouldn’t expect much of a positive outcome from their endeavors… For those who still feel that truth matters, may I suggest reading Anton Chaitkin’s “Treason in America”. It’s kind of a tough read getting started but it definitely puts environmentalism into historical context. And speaking of history, can anyone guess why the founder of a “death cult” (i.e. “Malthusian”) secret society popularly known as “Skull & Bones” would be so interested in also founding the American Historical Association (AHA) in 1884? Hmm? — the Postman (http://truthbetold.webuda.com)

  • billjames billjames 2 years ago

    Socialism, government control of the means of production, in communications, power and transport started in the mobilization to fight World War I. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 funded the way cities sprawled and mandated that to have a job in America mandates buying a car, made by a union that uses oil.

    To protect the highway monopoly since 1970 Peak Oil, Federal policy has been to import oil and socialize costs to defend supply chains, pollution, depletion and other costs into national debt.

    Fortunately courts recognized Federal control of communications was recognized as unconstitutional in 1984. Restoring communications to free markets resulted in vast innovation and millions of jobs.

    Railroads (privately funded) average 480 ton-miles per gallon. Government highway monopoly averages 32 passenger-miles per gallon, 136 times less efficient. Morgantown’s PRT network has delivered 110 million oil-free, injury-free passenger-miles. Yet in the same period Morgantown has been injury-free, the government highway monopoly has caused the loss of tens of thousands of miles of railroads and killed 1.3 million Americans.

    Enforcing the Constitution, restoring power and transport to free markets, end government socializing oil costs into national debt will result in millions of jobs as the economy adapts to Peak Oil of 1970.

  • fredlinn fredlinn 2 years ago

    The future of America according to Sussman.


  • sandcanyongal sandcanyongal 2 years ago

    Thank you commenters. You give me faith that not everyone in the country has gone crazy. Like someone said: “The earth is the jewel of our galaxy, and we’re trashing it like it’s garbage.”