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Environmental Impact Study Must Precede ‘Build Back Better’

Environmental Impact Study Must Precede ‘Build Back Better’
Bill’s immigration amnesty would devastate U.S. ecology and U.S. economy.
By Michael Cutler

The leaders of the Democrat Party claim to be concerned about the environment. It was the Democrats, after all, who have been pushing The Green New Deal, a major element of the disastrous legislation known as “Build Back Better.”

However, as we shall see, hypocrisy is never difficult to find.

Before America is pushed off the proverbial cliff by the lunacy of Build Back Better, I propose that an all-inclusive environmental impact study be conducted first to explore the intended and unintended consequences of this bill.

The “pro-environment” Democrats should be delighted to have an independent study done to make certain that we safeguard the environment that they claim to be ever so concerned about!

In 1973 the Endangered Species Act was enacted to protect endangered species of flora and fauna from extinction.

Frequently major construction projects require that environmental impact studies be conducted before work can begin, to safeguard the environment.

Having brought up the Endangered Species Act it is worth noting that on August 31, 2021 the Center for Biological Diversity issued a press release, Historic Accomplishment: Snail Darter Recovered Fish Made Famous in Tellico Dam Controversy No Longer Endangered that began with the following excerpt:

WASHINGTON— The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed today to remove the snail darter from the endangered species list due to recovery. Thanks to government and collaborative efforts, the little fish is no longer in danger of extinction.

The 3-inch-long fish — named after its primary food source, small riverine mollusks — gained fame in the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case Tennessee Valley Authority vs. Hill. The court upheld the newly passed Endangered Species Act at the request of conservationists and others who sought to protect the fish and its last free-flowing habitat in the Little Tennessee River, along with 300 family farms and countless Cherokee ancestral sites, from the construction of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s highly controversial Tellico Dam.

The press release went on to note:

“Thanks to the persistence of many people, the extinction of the snail darter was ultimately avoided, and today we can celebrate its recovery,” said Zygmunt Plater, the attorney who wrote the citizens’ petition to save the darter in 1975 and represented the fish and the farmers in the Supreme Court victory. “But the uneconomical Tellico project was a boondoggle from the start. The snail darter, like many other endangered species, signaled that human values are also endangered when their survival is threatened. The destruction of the Little Tennessee River shows that bad ecology is usually bad economics and it’s safer to save an animal’s natural habitat in the first place.

Today America’s middle class should be placed at the top of that Endangered Species List and should be given as much concern as the snail darter was accorded in 1975.

This past June I wrote an article about the disastrous impact that Biden’s immigration policies are having on the environment, Biden Administration Advances Environmentally-Unsustainable Immigration Policies.

The amnesty provision contained within Build Back Better would also potentially lead to the influx of tens of millions of immigrants as I outlined in my article, Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ is Bunk: Dems’ plans to import tens of millions of immigrant children prove it.

Each person who is present in the United States needs much more than a pillow on which to lay his/her head at night.

Each person present in the United States creates a significant ecological footprint.

Each person needs food, water, electricity, sewerage, clothing, housing, transportation, health care and, in the case of minors, eduction. Food required acreage of land be set aside to grow food for each person.

While Build Back Better promises to provide clean water, water shortages are becoming more pronounced, especially in the American West.

Consider this worrying report from CBS News’ 60 Minutes, Southwest states facing tough choices about water as Colorado River diminishes.

Water is not just used for drinking but to prepare food and grow crops and sustain farm animals. Water is also essential for sanitary purposes.

While the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that 6.5 million illegal aliens would benefit from the amnesty provided in Build Back Better, the realty is that there is no way to really know what number of illegal aliens would participate. The requirement that these aliens had to have entered the United States prior to 2011 is utterly meaningless. Because the numbers of aliens are so huge there will be no interviews and no field investigations. Additionally, speaking from direct experience, I spent one year as an adjudications officer during my 30 year career with the former INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) it is far easier and quicker for an adjudicator to approve an application for an immigration benefit than to deny it.

An application can be approved in less than 30 minutes while denials could take days or longer.

Denials are likely to be followed up by appeals by the aliens. No one appeals an approval!

Furthermore, no record of entry is created aliens who enter the United States without inspection. Many aliens use multiple false identities and so there would be no way to reliably determine whether an alien entered the United States ten years ago or ten days ago.

Considering the checkered background of Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Alejandro “Get to Yes” Mayorkas, adjudicators will likely be pressured to approve all of the applications they are assigned and it is also likely that there will be no efforts to verify the familial relationships between the legalized aliens and their supposed children and spouses for whom the newly legalized aliens will most likely have the authority to file petitions to grant them immigrant visas. The outrageous claim that “only” 6.5 million illegal aliens would be granted lawful status could easily explode into tens of millions of lawful immigrants.

Each person has an economic footprint as well. Flooding America with millions of aliens would have an adverse impact on inflation, the national debt, education, unemployment, jobs and wages.

Meanwhile, flooding America with millions of immigrants would lead to more inflation as they require food, clothing and shelter. The cost of housing will rise dramatically while the value of labor would plummet, leading to more homelessness.

Our roads and our cities would suffer from far more congestion which would lead to more pollution.

The inability to properly vet millions if aliens would irrevocably undermine national security and public safety and send that very dangerous message to aspiring illegal aliens from around the world that in the United States violations of laws will not just be tolerated but rewarded, essentially firing the starter’s pistol for this race to the borders of the United States.

It is important to be clear that the United States has the most generous immigration policies of any other country on this planet. Indeed, generally the United States admits more than one million lawful immigrants each year. They are provided with “Green Cards” and are immediately placed on the path to United States citizenship.

This is more than all of the other countries from the rest of the world combined.

Additionally the United States admits tens of millions of aliens on various temporary (non-immigrant) visas- again, more than the rest of the world combined.

However, I fear that the lunacy of Build Back Better would discourage highly qualified immigrants to seek to enter our country as the situation spirals out of control even as America’s adversaries lick their chops in anticipation of the self-destruction of our nation at the hands of those We The People elected to protect the Constitution, our nation and our fellow Americans.

There is nothing “Anti-Immigrant” about securing our borders from the un-inspected entry of aliens who may pose a threat to national security, public safety, public health and the jobs and wages of Americans. Indeed, the entry of such aliens poses a threat to Americans and lawful immigrants alike.

As the title of one of my previous articles noted, Biden’s Immigration Bill Would Be an Act of National Suicide: Figures don’t lie – but liars can figure.

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