This siege likely has very little to do with protecting the desert tortoise, but is something much more nefarious. Journalist Dana Loesch reports that Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) purposely pushed the BLM to initiate the power grab, intent on controlling Nevada land as a payback to his top donor and special interests. It is no coincidence that the current director of the BLM, Neil Kornze, is a former senior advisor to Reid.
The federal government already owns 84 percent of the land in Nevada. The BLM frequently gives waivers for wind or solar power development in areas where the desert tortoise is found. The desert tortoise has the least serious designation of endangered species, “vulnerable.” It is not considered “critically endangered” or even “endangered.” In fact, in 2013, the BLM announced it was going to euthanize hundreds of tortoises due to budget restrictions.
This is not the first time ranchers have had conflict with the federal government’s increasingly expansive control over government lands. The Sagebrush Rebellion during the 1970s and 1980s frequently pitted cattle ranchers against the BLM and environmental activists. No doubt many of these current land grabs are being done in order to force people out of rural areas and into the cities, as part of Agenda 21’s vague goals of making the earth more “sustainable.”
In 2012, investigative reporter Marcus Stern blew open a deal Reid and his son had arranged with a Chinese company to build a $5 billion solar farm and panel manufacturing plant in the southern Nevada desert. The BLM helpfully expressed its opinion that trespassing cattle would need to be removed in order to make way for the deal. Although the project ultimately failed, it represents part of a pattern by Reid to seize land to give to special interests in order to benefit himself, his family and campaign contributors. Similarly, in 2010, Reid’s campaign received thousands of dollars in donations from a Texas wind farm’s backers, which Reid rewarded with $450 million in federal stimulus funds.
The BLM admits that Bundy is not the only rancher who is violating federal grazing regulations, just one of the more serious cases. Clearly, Bundy was singled out and targeted. Senior BLM rangeland management specialist Bob Bolton said that the BLM only performs about four livestock impoundments a year, involving only a few dozen animals at most. He observed, “What we're doing this week in Nevada is not the norm at all.”
