Property Rights: Few have heard of Agenda 21, the U.N. plan for sustainable development that tosses property rights aside. But Alabama has, and it recently secured a victory as important as that over union power in Wisconsin.
After Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's stunning triumph over the excesses and abuses of public-sector unions, the London Telegraph's James Delingpole, an indefatigable opponent of global warming fraud, opined in a piece titled, "How Wisconsin And Alabama Helped Save The World," that we should take note of "an equally important but perhaps less well-publicized victory won in the Alabama House and Senate over the U.N.'s malign and insidious Agenda 21."
Agenda 21 is one of those compacts, like Law of the Sea, Kyoto and New START, that are supported by an apologetic administration with a fondness for the redistribution of American power and wealth on a local and global scale.
It fits in perfectly with President Obama's pledge to "fundamentally transform" America, its institutions and its heritage of capitalist freedom.
Agenda 21 has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate, but it may not have to be if in a second Obama term the Environmental Protection Agency pursues it by stealth, as it has other environmental agendas that make war on the free enterprise system and rights we hold dear.
One of those is property rights. "Land ... cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market," Agenda 21 says.
"Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes."
Not liking the sound of that, Alabama recently passed Senate Bill 477 unanimously in both of its houses. The legislation bars the taking of private property in Alabama without due process and says that "Alabama and all political subdivisions may not adopt or implement policy recommendations that deliberately or inadvertently infringe or restrict private property rights without due process, as may be required by policy recommendations originating in or traceable to Agenda 21."
Agenda 21 is intended to foster what environmentalists call "sustainable development" in the belief that man since the Industrial Revolution has been a plague on the planet, plundering its resources while destroying nature and putting the world at risk of disastrous climate change, poverty and disease.
At the end of March, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson jetted off to Paris' ministerial meeting of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, as the press release put it, "to discuss the agency's international efforts on urban sustainability."
Excuse us, but "urban sustainability" at the behest of global organizations is not what the EPA was created to do.
Jackson will represent the U.S. at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which will be held June 20-22 in Rio de Janeiro.
"Specifically, in a transition to a green economy, public policies will need to be used strategically to reorient consumption, investments and other economic activities," a U.N. document describing the conference explains.
The EPA's war on coal, its regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant and its regulatory abuses including the use of drones to spy on American farmers are key parts of this international agenda that Jackson says "is the rarest of opportunities to truly change the world. ... It means working together to strengthen the effectiveness of environmental governance."
We don't need "environmental governance," just a governance of, by and for the people of the United States.
Nor do we need to "reorient" our consumption and economic activities.
Alabama has just told the U.N. and the EPA what they need to be told — don't tread on us.
Full text of the bill is here (and it’s only 3 pages double-spaced). Key paragraphs:
The State of Alabama and all political subdivisions may not adopt or implement policy recommendations that deliberately or inadvertently infringe or restrict private property rights without due process, as may be required by policy recommendations originating in, or traceable to "Agenda 21," adopted by the United Nations in 1992 at its Conference on Environment and Development or any other international law or ancillary plan of action that contravenes the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of the State of Alabama.
Since the United Nations has accredited and enlisted numerous non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations to assist in the implementation of its policies relative to Agenda 21 around the world, the State of Alabama and all political subdivisions may not enter into any agreement, expend any sum of money, or receive funds contracting services, or giving financial aid to or from those non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations as defined in Agenda 21.
The bill went from first reading to signed legislation in about 6 weeks (April 5 to May 16).
Ohio need to tear a page from Alabama’s playbook on this one.
