Published: Monday, July 12, 2021
A Nebraska corn field. Photo credit: Richard Hurd/Flickr
A Nebraska corn field. Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts has emerged as a strong opponent of the Biden administration's conservation push, saying he is concerned about it hurting agriculture and rural communities. Richard Hurd/Flickr
As Margaret Byfield stood onstage in Lewiston, Mont., this spring — beneath a slide warning of the "30x30 Land Grab" — she quoted Thomas Jefferson; James Madison; and then her late father, Sagebrush Rebellion II icon E. Wayne Hage.
"He said, 'Either you have the right to own property, or you are property.' And if you think about it, you can't be one or the other," Byfield, the executive director of the nonprofit group American Stewards of Liberty, said about Hage. "And that, unfortunately, is where we're headed with 30 by 30."