WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-controlled House moved toward approval Tuesday of a bill that would allow the Border Patrol to circumvent more than a dozen environmental laws on all federally managed lands within 100 miles of the borders with Mexico and Canada.
Supporters say the measure is needed to give border agents unfettered access to rugged lands now controlled by the Interior Department and Forest Service. Laws such as the Wilderness Act and Endangered Species Act often prevent agents from driving vehicles on huge swaths of land, leaving it to wildlife, illegal immigrants and smugglers who can walk through the territory undisturbed, they said.
Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, said the restrictions have turned wilderness areas into highways for criminals, who not only bring in drugs but also abuse and rape women and leave behind thousands of tons of trash.
“Drug traffickers couldn’t care less about environmental sensitivities,” he said. “The removal of these criminals from our public lands is a value to the environment as well as the mission of the land managers.”
But opponents, including hunters, conservationists and Hispanic advocacy groups, call the bill a heavy-handed fix that guts important environmental protections. They also question whether the measure is needed along the vast Canadian border, where there is scant evidence that illegal immigrants are hiking through national parks or wilderness areas in an attempt to slip into the U.S.
Read More at OfficialWire. By Matthew Daly.
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Of course the hissypanics will cry and have a hissy fit when we want to destroy their paths into America.
You know they'll cry especially that smiling Hernandez guy that O'Reilly has on.
The Southern border needs to be shut down completely except for the Legal Access ways and Legal Border crossings. To bad we couldn't put up some .50 caliber machine guns with automatic computer tracking (think of the automatic guns in the movie "Aliens") of anything over 3 feet high, that fires upon these illegal Smuggler Highways. I bet that would make the Drug cartels think twice about trying to circumvent our borders.
It's about time the republicans did something good especially when you know these illegal alien creeps are coming into the country on land protected by Dept of Forest Service and the Wilderness Act & Endangered Species.Obummer should use drone like he does on his fellow muslim terrorists,these drug cartels are no better or the mules bringing them in.
I thought it was the Border Patrol that was pushing the bill. It was just the Republicans that supported it?