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Landowners decry Muleshoe ‘land grab’ despite manager’s assurances

Landowners decry Muleshoe ‘land grab’ despite manager’s assurances

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller is joined by county commissioners from New Mexico at the landowners meeting on July 25.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller is joined by county commissioners from New Mexico at the landowners meeting on July 25.

Reece Nations/Plainview Herald

Landowners from across the region met in Littlefield last week to deliberate on plans to expand the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge.

The line to enter the Lamb County Agriculture Building on East 17th Street stretched out the door on the evening of July 25 as landowners filed in. The meeting was coordinated by the property rights group American Stewards of Liberty and warned owners to beware of agreeing to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s conservation easements.

The Herald previously reported on criticism leveled at the service’s Land Protection Plan to add up to 700,000 acres of land to the refuge out of approximately 7,000,000 acres within its acquisition boundary. The service plans to acquire land for the Muleshoe refuge, currently around 6,440 acres in size, through both voluntary easements and fee title acquisitions.

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Despite the voluntary nature of the easements, speakers at the landowners’ meeting repeatedly expressed concerns about the their perceived prioritization of environmental preservation over the potential for future private, economic development. Namely, each of the featured speakers at the meeting echoed many of the sentiments expressed publicly when news of the Muleshoe NWR expansion first began making headlines in June. 

The Muleshoe NWR land protection plan was persistently characterized as a “land grab” imposed by the federal government’s “America the Beautiful initiative,” directed by an executive order from President Joe Biden, intended to conserve at least 30% of the nation’s lands and waters by the year 2030. Monty Edwards, ASL member and one of the meeting’s organizers, told attendees that the USFWS’s expansive plan could have dire consequences on local economic development and impact.

“It’s kind of hard to try to tell somebody about the impact of something that’s never happened before,” Edwards said from the podium. “Something of this size– potential size, you know, how do we illustrate that? And how do we put up a chart or graph that shows what can happen if a lot of this land use changes? But I don’t think you have to be a rocket scientist or a prophet to think that there’s going to be a big change if we start changing the way that we use our land.”

Monty Edwards, a member of American Stewards of Liberty, addresses the crowd at the Lamb County Agriculture Building on July 25.

Monty Edwards, a member of American Stewards of Liberty, addresses the crowd at the Lamb County Agriculture Building on July 25.

Reece Nations/Plainview Herald

When Edwards first learned of the land protection plan about two months ago, he said he thought little of it at first. Then, through conversations with regional landowners who brought it to his attention, he gave it a closer look and began to realize the extent of the refuge’s possible incursion into private property.

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Edwards said the definition of a land grab is when “groups of people with outside money” try to buy up lots of acres of land. He implored the meeting’s attendees to “do all (they) can do to stop this.”

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller was in attendance at the event. He told attendees that the initiative by the Biden-Harris administration is part of a larger, “global” plan that could result in half of the country’s lands being removed from private ownership and placed under government control.

“The first week that Biden took office, this was one of his top priorities he instituted by executive order,” Miller said. “He didn’t go through Congress, they never voted on a 30 by 30 plan… His plan is to take 30% of our productive land out of production by the year 2030 — that’s phase one. Phase two is the 50-50 plan to take 50% of our productive land out of production by the year 2050.”

While the U.S. government has committed to conserve at least 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030, no initiative to conserve 50% of America’s lands and waters by 2050 has been promoted by federal officials. Some non-governmental environmental advocacy organizations have promoted similar goals through initiatives like “Nature Needs Half” from the WILD Foundation or the “Canadian Boreal Forest Conservation Framework” embraced by the Boreal Songbird Initiative, but Miller never cited any specific program in his remarks.

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Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller discusses the Muleshoe land plan at the landowners meeting on July 25.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller discusses the Muleshoe land plan at the landowners meeting on July 25.

Reece Nations/Plainview Herald

Miller said the plan offers to “bribe” landowners under false pretenses and only prevents landowners from pursuing development. He said the plan would not prevent a government entity from “using eminent domain to build an airport or solar farm” directly next to a landowner’s private property.

Margaret Byfield, executive director of ASL, said the government’s designation of the dunes sagebrush lizard lesser prairie-chicken to the list for endangered species was another tool to impose its will. She said this move gives the government more authority to conduct policy compliance enforcement activities related to land protection areas.

“That gives them tremendous regulatory power now over your property,” Byfield said. “So they put the weapons in place that should make every one of you guys nervous about whether or not the things that you do on a daily basis could be harming a species that would open you up to criminal or civil charges.”

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When the government controls land, the “power” it exerts is enforced upon those that dwell on or near that land, Byfield said. A native of Nevada, Byfield warned attendees that conservation easements like ones being offered in the Muleshoe NWR LPP could eventually cause Texans to face some of the same difficulties that landowners in her home state might contend with.

Byfield told attendees of the meeting about her background, having grown up on about 1,100 acres of land in Nevada before moving to Texas. She said family’s grazing rights, water rights, and range improvements were all subject to federal claims that had to be fought off though the administrative appeals process.

Margaret Byfield, executive director of American Stewards of Liberty, discusses the Muleshoe land plan at the landowners meeting on July 25.

Margaret Byfield, executive director of American Stewards of Liberty, discusses the Muleshoe land plan at the landowners meeting on July 25.

Reece Nations/Plainview Herald

“This is one of the things that I think you will hear if you start talking to people that had to deal with the federal agencies when the federal agencies own a lot of land in their area,” Byfield said. “Sometimes you can get some really nice guys, sometimes you can get some really bad guys. The key thing to understand is they have the power and control over you because they own that land.”

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The picture being painted by the speakers of the landowners’ meeting was one of deceit and issued clear forewarnings of the possibility of self-imposed tyranny. But, as Muleshoe NWR Manager Jude Smith sees it, concerns about USFWS’s land plan are being “really blown out of proportion.”

Smith told the Herald that the Muleshoe NWR LPP was in the works years before the Biden administration’s conservation initiative. He said from between the years of 2011 and 2015, the lack of an actionable acquisition plan for the Muleshoe NWR meant that numerous landowners who were willing to sell their land to the refuge had to be turned down.

“Most refuges have an expansion boundary,” Smith said. “Muleshoe’s just one of the oldest ones, they didn’t do it back in the (1930s). And, you know, interest has come to the (past) refuge managers, but they retired before they could get the plan and I just happened to not leave… So you’re going to look across the nation, and you’re going to see kind of expansion boundaries and, and the amount of acreage that could be acquired is going to match the landscape.”

Despite the focus on the Biden administration’s role in the process, Smith said the past three presidential administrations have contributed to the plan and declined to put a stop to it. Smith said an important distinction between the goals of the America the Beautiful initiative and the refuge expansion plan are their timelines.

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While the federal government’s conservation goals are specifically set to be achieved by 2030, Smith said the Muleshoe expansion plan is set to take place over the course of decades. No one at the service envisions adding 700,000 acres to the refuge within their “lifetime,” much less within the next six years, he said.

Smith said the kind of land the service is interested in acquiring does not include “cultivated ground” that agriculture producers use to grow crops like cotton. Historic losses to the nation’s short grass prairies and wetlands are the driving force behind the Muleshoe LPP, he said, not the enforcement of climate change provisions.

Most importantly, Smith wants landowners to know that the service is not out to “cajole” people into giving up their land. No one who is unwilling to sell will be forced to give up their land to the USFWS, the Bureau of Land Management, or any federal agency, he emphasized.

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“We were going through this with the last administration, and they were approving of it,” Smith said. “You know, this is a very — for lack of a better word — a mundane plan… We’re not gonna force, we’re not sending notes. If someone’s interested and can go through the trials and tribulations of selling or going into an easement, we’ll work with them.”