The Daily Signal - Biden Adopted Vague ‘30 by 30’ Conservation Plan From 'Radical Environmental Groups,' Nebraska Governor Says

Episode Date: July 23, 2021

President Joe Biden's proposed plan to conserve 30% of America’s land by 2030 lacks needed details, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts says. The Biden administration has not provided details on how it intends to accomplish the goal, but enough is known about Biden’s "30 by 30” conservation initiative to know that it won't serve the best interests of the American people, the Republican governor says.  "Right now, 97% of Nebraska is privately owned, and if you wanted to set aside 30% of this in conservation you would drive up land prices [and] make it more difficult for young people to get into production agriculture," Ricketts says "You would certainly drive up food prices [and] you'd drive up property taxes." Ricketts joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the implications of Biden’s "30 by 30" initiative. The governor also discusses disturbing sex-education standards proposed by the Nebraska Department of Education and what parents can do to push back on leftist policies being implemented in their children’s schools.  We also cover these stories: Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the House of Representatives won’t vote on a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill until the Senate votes on a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.  Chinese officials reject a plan from the World Health Organization for a second phase of a probe into the origin of COVID-19 that would include the possibility that the coronavirus escaped from a research lab in Wuhan, China. An Illinois teacher files a lawsuit against her former employer for firing her after she criticized rioting and looting in Chicago last summer following the death of George Floyd.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Rachel Del Judas. And I'm Virginia Allen. On today's show, I talk with Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts about the new sex education agenda being promoted in his state. We also discuss what Americans need to know about President Joe Biden's 30 by 30 conservation plan and how the plan will impact Nebraska and the country as a whole. Don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. and encourage others to subscribe. And now on to our top news. Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the House of Representatives won't vote on a $1.2 trillion

infrastructure bill until the Senate votes on a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. Even though President Joe Biden has implied that he would sign the infrastructure bill, regardless of whether the other bill passes, Pelosi made clear during a press conference Thursday that she wants both bills to move forward together. per NBC News. As I mentioned, we are here to get the job done. We cannot respond to some of the legislation until the Senate acts. As I said, we will not take up the infrastructure bill until the Senate passes the reconciliation bill. The $1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill mainly includes money for traditional infrastructure, such as roads and bridges. The $3.5 trillion dollar

reconciliation bill provides funding for free community college, universal preschools, combating climate change, and expanding Medicare. In June, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the president has appropriately delinked a potential bipartisan infrastructure bill from the massive unrelated tax and spend plans that Democrats want to pursue on a partisan basis. Now I am calling on President Biden to engage leader Schumer and Speaker Pelosi and make sure they follow his lead. China said Thursday that it cannot accept a plan from the World Health Organization that would be a second phase of research looking into the origins of the coronavirus.

The Associated Press reported that Jung Yixen, vice minister of China's National Health Commission, said he was rather taken aback that the second phase of research looks into the possibility that the coronavirus originated in a lab in Wuhan, China. Yixen also said, per the Associated Press, that it is impossible for us to accept such an origin tracing plan. An Illinois teacher is suing her former employer for firing her after she criticized the rioting and looting in Chicago last summer after the death of George Floyd. Jeannie Hedgepeth taught at Palatine High School 35 miles northwest of Chicago for 20 years. A year ago, she was fired for writing posts on Facebook that criticized the Chicago riots. On June 1st, Hegpeth pushed back against the idea of white privilege in one of her Facebook. posts writing, I am about facts, truth-seeking, and love. I will speak on any topic I choose because I live in a free country. I find the term white privilege as racist as the N-word. You have not

walked in my shoes either, so do not make assumptions about me and my so-called privilege. Two weeks later, the school board voted to dismiss the teacher. Now Judicial Watch, a conservative legal organization has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Palatine School District on behalf of Hegpeth. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a formal statement, Jeannie Hegpeth had every right to express herself freely and openly on her personal Facebook page outside of school about matters of undeniable public concern. Fitton added that firing her for opposing lawlessness, speaking out about gun rights, praising black conservatives, and criticizing Democrats and tenants of critical race theory violated the First Amendment and the school district

and district officials who did so will be held accountable. Dr. Leanna-Wen, former president of Planned Parenthood, said in an interview with CNN, that the U.S. government should institute COVID-19 vaccine mandates and proof of vaccination. In the interview, Wen said that there is one thing the Biden administration could be doing right now that would change the equation when it comes to incentives, and that's to use proof of vaccination. If they could say, get the vaccine, you have proof of vaccination, you can take off your mask. That would really be key. I also think vaccine mandates are something that will have to come. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts, as we discussed

leftist sex education policies and President Joe Biden's 30 by 30 conservation plan. I'm Zach Smith. And I'm John Carl O'Conaparo. And if you want to understand what's happening at the Supreme Court, be sure to check out. SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast. We take a look at the cases, the personalities, and the gossip at the highest court in the land. Be sure to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you find your podcasts. It's SCOTUS 101. I am so pleased to welcome to the show, Nebraska, Governor Pete Ricketts.

Governor, thank you so much for being here. It's my pleasure. Thank you very much for having me on. Well, this week we have been observing Captive Nations Week. all across America. President Eisenhower issued the first Captive Nations Week proclamation in 1959, declaring that the third week of July was a time to advocate for the freedom of those living under communism. And this July, you declared that the month of July would be a dedicated time to remember those victims of communism. and specifically the July would be victims of communism remembrance month.

Talk a little bit about why you made that decision and why you felt it was important to do so. Yeah, absolutely. So the Chinese Communist Party is observing their 100th anniversary. And I knew they'd be talking a lot about the things that the Chinese Communist Party wants to accomplish or claim credit for things that they've done. And I thought it was important to remind people that more people have died, because of the imposition of communism in the 20th century than both World War I and World War II combined.

That communism is a philosophy that really strips one of individual rights. It, of course, promises emancipation, but really just puts people into slavery. By taking away your rights, whether it's property rights or the right to determine your government, you're really devaluing people. And it's just the complete opposite,

whole opposite of what we believe here in America, where we believe that our government was instituted to protect our rights, and we uphold the dignity of the individual, and we really cherish those freedoms that we have, and that's why we have a government. So it's a time to remember the victims of communism, 65 million people that died in China, 20 million of the Soviet Union, 2 million in North Korea, 2 million in Cambodia. And of course, today in the headlines, we see what's going on in Cuba with regard to the protests in the streets. there, you know, 150,000 people died with the imposition of communism in Cuba as well. So we see the human cost with the imposition of communism, and we need to remind people about that.

And it's also a time to reflect upon the great tradition we have here in America of protecting our freedoms and why our Constitution actually is instituted to protect our freedoms. And that was certainly the intent of the founders, that our rights to come to us from God, not from the government, and that governments are implemented to protect our rights that come to us from God. And it's, again, just the opposite where you have a communist regime, they think they own all the rights and they can divvy those out in meager portions as they see fit. So it really is a stark contrast between the way we run our country here and how communist nations run their countries. No, we certainly appreciate you taking that stand in Nebraska.

it's so, so critical to be talking about what is happening in communist nations across the world. As you mentioned, Cuba, we're watching very, very closely, obviously supporting those, calling for freedom, calling for democracy. But I want to take a few minutes to dive into some of the issues that you all are facing in Nebraska. Here at the Daily Signal, we have been covering extensively what is happening in public schools across America. We're seeing the left push a very, very radical agenda in many of our schools. And in Nebraska, you all are facing your state Board of Education promoting a new sex education policy. Talk a little bit about this and why it concerns you. Yeah, the Department of Education in Nebraska does not report to me.

They are run by a separately elected board of eight individuals elected from across our state by district. And one of the things the State Board of Education is done, as well as the Department of Education, is they put out these new sex ed standards. And these standards are very disturbing. They are age inappropriate. They're teaching non-scientific concepts. In some cases, they're teaching things that actually aren't even true. And some topics really need to be handled by parents working with their children directly.

And so what I've been doing is going around the state with town halls to really inform parents of what is in these standards and encouraging them to read the standards for themselves and then reach out to the State Board of Education because the State Board, as I mentioned, doesn't report to me, they're not accountable to me, but they are accountable to voters. And that's what I'm encouraging parents to do is to reach out to the State Board of Education and the Nebraska Department of Education about these sex ed standards. And a couple of things that go along with this is that this idea of comprehensive sex ed, comprehensive sex education actually goes back or has its founding in the abortion movement,

that it was Dr. Mary Calderon, who is the medical director for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, that formed a group called CECIS, Sexuality Information, Education, or Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States to push this concept of comprehensive sex education. and that is how it got into our curriculum. Somebody along the line took these comprehensive sex ed standards from SICAS, which just recently got updated, and put them into our sex ed standards that the State Department of Nebraska Department of Education

was going to be pushing. And so it's really being lifted from these advocates. It's not coming from parents. It's coming from advocates. And it's a national effort. And that's one of the things we want people to know that the sex ed standards are really coming from outside advocacy groups not being driven by parents. And my position is that this should be handled by local school boards and superintendents working in junction with parents

to determine what that sex education curriculum is and really focusing on the science of biological reproduction and not getting into these other topics that are non-scientific. And that really require parents to get involved to change the State Board of Education's position on where we're going with this. So that's what we've been talking about. And I'm happy to go into more detail on the different aspects of this. But at the high level is what we're trying to do is get parents motivated because the parents' voice has not been heard and needs to be heard. Yeah. Yeah. If you would, share a little bit more specifically, you know, about what this would change in the classroom. And then also, where does this proposal stand right now? And, you know,

Does it look like parents are going to, you know, be successful at pushing back? Or is this going to be something that, you know, is in all likelihood probably implemented? Well, another important thing to note, actually, is that the State Board of Education has no requirement to do this. In fact, the legislature over the last decade twice has declined to require the Nebraska Department of Education to set sex education standards at all. So they don't even have to do this. These standards actually are even more radical than the one Seekis has put out there. What I mean by that is they actually put these concepts in an earlier in age. So, for example, in kindergarten, they talk about family structures.

But they don't talk about the one that I grew up in, which was a traditional one of a mom and a dad in a heterosexual relationship. Nowhere in these standards is that family structure mentioned. All sorts of other family structures are mentioned, but not that one. In first grade, they start teaching kids about gender identity. identity in third grade sexual orientation. In fourth grade, they actually compare sexual orientation and gender identity and want the fourth graders to be able to talk about that. They also teach in fourth grade that sex is assigned at birth, which is factually wrong.

Your sex is determined at the moment of conception based upon your parents' DNA. And this is a concept that really says that sex is a social construct and, again, factually inaccurate. So that's one of the things that's going on there. In fifth grade, they go on to talk about gender identity on a continuum. Again, a non-scientific concept of gender identity along a continuum. In sixth grade, they talk about the concepts of transgender and pangender and two-spirits and non-binary and so forth. And then in seventh grade, they teach seventh graders. And again, remember, these are 12-year-olds that about anal and oral sex. And as I've talked to, say, for example, one pediatrician told me this is grooming 101,

that these standards are actually sexualizing our children. And again, what I'm encouraging parents do is just read these standards. You'll be shocked at what is in there. And then you have to call on the State Board of Education to scrap the standards. There is no fixing these standards. This just has to be dropped entirely. And the process is that parents have been showing up by the hundreds of the meetings over the last several months. These standards, were announced in March and in the meetings the State Board of Education has had, hundreds of parents have shown up to oppose these standards. And then I believe thousands have commented directly to the State Board of Education

or the Nebraska Department of Education via email, phone, letter, that sort of thing. And my understanding is that the Department of Education is going to come out with another draft and they have another meeting set for August 6th at 9 a.m. in Lincoln to, you know, as a part of the regular scheduled meetings. And so that new draft may be out before that August 6th week. So that will be another opportunity for parents to be able to weigh in on the next draft of the standards. So I think we've still got more work to do to get the State Board of Education to scrap this. We're waiting to see what they're coming out in their second draft.

So we just don't know where this is going to be going. But their original plan was to get these finalized in this fall, the fall of 21, for the imposition on school districts in the fall of, you know, for the next school year. So that's what we're trying to block is to make sure that this doesn't come out and isn't implemented in the next school year. Yeah. Well, I think it's so encouraging to hear that parents are showing up to those town hall events and learning what is actually, you know, in this curriculum, what's in these policies. I've spoken with so many different parents here on this podcast and for written stories at the Daily Signal. And so often there's just a lack of awareness of what is actually going on. You know, that's not the parents' fault.

It's just lives are busy. So it's so critical to be putting that information in front of parents and letting them know, hey, this is what's going on in your child's classroom. And you have a voice and you can stand up and say something. So thank you for the work that you're doing on that. That's just really, really critical. Yeah, you know, that's a great point. It's actually one of the things my town halls that I encourage parents to do is not only read the standards and reach out to the State Board of Education, but reach out to your local school board, your local superintendents, talk to them about it, how they feel about it. and also just ask, what is the curriculum that's currently being taught?

Again, parents have the right to know. And in fact, Nebraska is actually related to a U.S. Supreme Court decision back in 1923 that basically affirmed that parents are the primary educators of their children and have the right to direct their education in the way they see fit. Absolutely. Well, let's switch gears for just one moment. I know you've also been hosting town hall events across Nebraska on, the subject of conservation. And this is a subject that is, of course, very, very personal to Nebraska.

This plays a large role in your state. And President Joe Biden, he has proposed what he's calling the 30 by 30 plan, which aims to conserve at least 30 percent of our land and waters by the year 2030. Now, conservation is something that, you know, we all agree should take place. It's just there's obviously differences in agreement about how we should go about that. So, Explain a little bit about what President Biden's 30 by 30 plan would do and specifically how it would impact the people of Nebraska. Yeah. Well, first of all, I think it's important to note that this is not President Biden's idea. This was not his plan. He actually is adopting it from radical environmental groups. And in fact, the whole concept starts back in 1992 with the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, where they encourage nations to set aside 17% of their land and to conservation by, the year 2020. And when they were just defining it at that time, they were talking about permanently

protected in its natural state, which means no human development, no human use. And that was updated recently to get to that 30% goal we talked about by the year 2030 and was also repeated in a paper by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning group where they argued it should be 30% as well. And frankly, it's not science behind that 30% and even, even, Even the Center for American Progress report will admit that, you know, they say it's just science alone. The numbers don't just drive everything. But it really is something that if you look at the state of Nebraska, if we pursued this policy, it would be devastating to our small towns and rural communities because right now, 97% of Nebraska is privately owned.

And if you wanted to set aside 30% of this in conservation, you would drive up land prices, make it more difficult for young people to get into agriculture, production, agriculture. You would certainly drive up food prices, you'd drive up property taxes. There's all sorts of consequences for trying to set aside land, this land into conservation. And what President Biden did is, he put this in just a two-paragraph effort in his executive order of 14008, which I think was 57 pages long or something like that, where he directed the Department of the Interior to come up with a plan for how to achieve 30 by 30 and how to measure it. It's also important to note that Kamala Harris, when she was a senator, introduced a Senate resolution along these lines,

Senate Resolution 372. And Deb Haley, when she was in the U.S. House, did the same thing. She introduced House Resolution 835, that both those called upon the U.S. to put 30% of the land into conservation by the year 2030. So obviously, Kamala Harris is now our vice president. Deb Haley's the Interior Secretary. So these are people in very powerful positions. that are pushing this agenda from these radical environmental groups.

And one of the big concerns we have with this is that the administration is giving us no information. They've tried to rebrand 30 by 30 as America the Beautiful about the only thing that we learned out of that document. It was very high-level full platitudes about how they want to work voluntarily with farmers and ranchers and so forth. They did say they're getting away from this idea of permanently protecting the natural state to come. conservation, but they won't define what conservation means. And if you're not going to define conservation, how do you know if we're going to get to 30 percent? Here's another important thing about this. According to their own document, U.S. Geological Survey says about 12 percent of the United States is actually in that state of conservation. And to get to 30 percent, you'd have to

add on 440 million acres. You'd have to go from like about 289 million acres, and these are actually national geographic numbers, 289 million acres to 729 million acres, or an increase of 440 million acres. That's a land mass, the size of Nebraska, nine times over. So a land mass, a size of Nebraska, this year and every year for the next nine years. Or another way to think about it is two states of Texas. So it's a huge amount of land.

And again, that's why, as we think about this, this could be so devastating to our small towns and rural communities and why we want more information. In fact, I led 15 governors writing a letter to President Biden asking for more information, reminding him he doesn't have the constitutional authority to just do this unilaterally, and ask how he plans to implement this. So far, we've not received a response back. And about the only thing we have is this America's Beautiful plan, which, as I said,

really is very short on details. Secretary Vilsack or Ag Secretary has said they're going to do the same voluntary conservation programs they've done in the past. But if that's true, they're never going to reach 30 percent. And so that's why we're asking these questions because based upon what they've said so far, either they're not going to make 30%. There's no reason to think that the same voluntary programs we've had for decades that has gotten us 12% is going to get us to 30% in the next nine years. That math just doesn't work. Or they're not telling us everything about how they're going to accomplish 30%.

And that's the question we're asking. How are you going to accomplish this? The way we're doing it right now will not reach 30%. So clearly, you're either going to fail in your goal or you're not telling us everything. And in relation to, you know, kind of as we discuss conservation and, you know, where we stand right now, does land need to be kind of owned and run by the federal government in order to be storted well? Or is that something that should be taking place more on state and local levels? our farmers and ranchers were the original conservationists and they are farmers and ranchers take care of their

lands and they can pass it on to the next generation in fact 95% of our farms and ranches are family owned many of them multi-generation and so our farmers and ranchers are doing true conservation they're improving the land so that they can pass it on to the next generation and that is to me being effective now you can look at the and actually that's a great point you know, does it need to be done by the federal government? I would ask the federal government show us you're actually doing a good job because we can see examples like in California where the land management has been tied up with radical environmental groups. And then one of the results is, you know, some of the fires that we've seen there because underbrush is not allowed to clear up.

So it creates conditions that are right for these types of fires. So, you know, those are the kind of things where we got to ask question, well, is the federal government really the best person to take care of it? It's not clear that the federal government has a great track record, whereas our farmers and ranchers have successfully passed down their farms and ranches for generations, always improving the land, certainly using it, but also making sure that it was able to continue to sustain that production agriculture for the next generation and actually doing it in a better way. And I'll give you an example. Here in the state, we have a system of water management for the Ogallala Aquifer and all of our

water resources, but specifically with regards to the Ogola Aquifer, because of our state system of water management, the Ogola Aquifer is within one foot of where it was in the 1950s, despite the fact that Nebraska is the largest irrigated state in the country. We have more irrigated acres than any other state, including California. And so that's an example of how people at the local level are going to do a better job than the federal government, and we did that without the federal government telling us we had to do that. So what is the next step here? I mean, we obviously, like you say, we still don't know a lot about this 30 by 30 plan. Do we just wait and find out from the Biden administration? Are there steps that, you know, we can be taking? Well, certainly one of the things I'm doing is educating people about what kind of steps they can take. We don't know a lot of information. But what we do want people to know is if they're signing conservation easements, for example, to make sure they're reading those agreements if it's an easement and they don't limit the term of years. It's permanent. It's forever under Nebraska.

law. Also, counties have the ability to reject or deny those easements if they set up a structure like a conference of land use plan to objectively judge whether or not that easement is in conflict with their plan or not. So we're educating county boards on that. We're asking counties to pass resolutions opposing 30 by 30 to send a grassroots message to the Biden administration of our opposition, but also to raise awareness and support any future legislation that may happen here in Nebraska. So that's a potential thing that people can take steps to do. We also have talked to folks who see their conservation reserve programs have come up for renewal. And so what they have done, the USDA has put in additional restrictive environmental language in there. So we're asking

people to read those agreements and don't sign up for anything you don't want to do. That's another example. And of course, we want people to support their federal delegation, Congresswoman Bowbird from Colorado has a 30 by 30 termination plan in the House. There's a similar bill in the U.S. Senate. So we want people to sign on to that termination plan to block any effort by the administration to go through the House or the Senate. But one of my big fears is they're going to try and do it through regulation. And that's why we're really asking people to stay engaged and let us know if they see any examples of this expansion of regulation to let us know so we can fight it. And one example, for example, might be the waters of the U.S.

which, you know, Obama EPA tried to expand the definition of waterways that they could regulate unlawfully, and we took them to court and stopped that. In fact, got an injunction until the Trump administration came in and rewrote the rule in a lawful way. And I understand now that the EPA is looking at rewriting that waters the U.S. rule again, opening the back up. So if they try to do something unlawful, we will take them to court and stop it again. So there's a number of different things that we've got to be doing.

But, you know, this is something that's, it's, we're in it for the long haul. As long as this administration is in place, we can expect radical environmental groups to hold sway. And that's where we have to be there to stop. We cannot wait until something has happened because by then it's too late. Governor, thank you for sharing that. Do you want to ask you before we let you go. I personally have not been to the state of Nebraska yet, but it's on my list. So I have to ask you, what are, you know, maybe three of the top places that you think should be on everyone's list when they bring.

when they visit Nebraska? Well, we've got a very diverse beautiful state from one end to the other, so you really can kind of pick. Some of the great things to do are to go to our Scotts Bluff National Monument. It's a beautiful part of the state or the Pine Ridge in northwest Nebraska to be able to take in some of the scenic beauty there along our Niagara River, do a floating trip or tanking. Actually, Nebraska has more miles of streams and rivers than any state in the country, about 80,000 miles. So doing that tanking, which is getting a big water to tank, the cattle would drink out,

and getting inside of that, floating down a river is one of the great pastime. You see a lot of the great natural beauty. We also have great events here. In fact, we just hosted the College World Series, the U.S. Swim Trials, and the U.S. Senior Open. So we got a lot of great events here as well. We're going to have Garth Brooks at Memorial Stadium, entertain about 90,000 fans here in August.

So a lot of great fun events that go out. here in the state as well as the great natural beauty. I've never heard of tanking, so I'm going to add that to my list. That sounds really fun. It is. It's a ton of fun. Governor, thank you so much for joining. We really appreciate your time today. Great. Thank you very much for having you on.

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