Another Environmental Redistribution Scam? - Granite Grok

Another Environmental Redistribution Scam?

stream restorationShould an article titled “Revenue Stream: How An Environmental Law Creates Jobs In Coal Country” set off red flags? It’s about how thanks to environmental regulations jobs are being created in coal country and employing former miners.

More red flags.

I haven’t had time to dig into the financials or to follow the money but its big business. Equity firms buy up tens of thousands of acres and “hire” eco-restoration companies to fix broken streams that bring “natural” water ecologies back into these areas. The work builds credits in mitigation banks which can be purchased by developers to offset damage to streams or wetlands caused by development.

Mitigation bankers like EIP often work with state and federal agencies to identify and acquire disturbed properties and develop restoration plans which must include long-term protection (typically through a land conservation trust or through a state program). These properties are monitored for at least a decade during which ecological value is determined using a variety of scoring systems.

Stream restoration and mitigation banking are controversial among scientists. Click here to learn why.

Companies are awarded credits from state and federal agencies based on “ecological uplift.” Any developer that intends to impair or destroy a stream or wetland as part of a permitted project – be it an extractive industry, a Walmart, or a highway project – can buy those credits to offset the damage done.

EIP’s properties are just a small piece of the national mitigation banking pie. About 2000 banks exist throughout the U.S. The National Mitigation Banking Association estimates the ecological restoration industry as a whole creates $25 billion each year and a recent conference focused on the potential for more private investment.

Selling indulgences. Lovely.

Again, I’ve not dug into the money trail, but we’re talking billions, and I can’t help but think there are taxpayer billions bound up in this scheme.

Another concern is the incremental process used by some groups to lock up millions of acres with the help of local, state, and federal law, as a way to systematically (over many decades if need be) compress the population into more dense urban settings. A process that ties into the regional planning scams, zoning land use restrictions, wastewater and runoff regulations, and a host of progressive priorities that eat away at property rights while redistributing wealth.

We need to find the well from which all these billions spring, and who is backing these mitigation banks and the credit scheme.

I like streams and the idea of restoring them, and I love nature and woods and all that, but this plays into too many progressive agenda items to be just that.

Note: Our good friends at the USDA might be involved.

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