Biden Administration Wants To Let Foreign Entities Own U.S. Land – House GOP Open Up Probe

The Biden administration wants to open the door for foreign investors to invest in U.S. land.

This would occur through Natural Asset Companies (NACs), which are a way for private entities to own public land for the use of conservation.

E&E News shares more on what a NAC is:

Investors could soon buy into companies trading on the New York Stock Exchange with a unique dual purpose: protect nature — including on public lands — and make money.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is currently weighing whether to clear the way for the NYSE to offer a new kind of investment known as “natural asset companies,” or NACs.

The idea proposed by the NYSE is to list companies with missions to improve ecosystems through management, maintenance, or restoration of public or privately-owned lands — and then put a dollar figure on the resulting benefits, like clean air or wildlife habitat.

The proposal doesn’t sound harmful on the surface.

However, GOP members are worried about the implications of letting foreign entities invest in our land.

The Natural Resources Committee has opened up an investigation into the matter.

The folks at Fox News share more:

Republican lawmakers, led by Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., informed the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had opened an investigation into the agency’s controversial proposed rule change allowing for a new type of public company, so-called Natural Asset Companies (NACs), to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

NACs are a type of company that is chartered to “protect, restore and grow the natural assets under their management to foster healthy ecosystems,” according to the Intrinsic Exchange Group, which collaborated with the NYSE to develop the new corporate taxonomy. If finalized, the rule would allow NACs to be traded publicly.

“The Committee is deeply concerned with the potential impact NACs may have on the management of federal lands, effective conservation of wildlife habitat, and responsible development of natural resources,” the House Republicans wrote in their letter, which was addressed to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and Haoxiang Zhu, the director of the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets.

“Most notably, the proposed rule would allow private investment interests to control and manage national parks and other publicly owned lands — an unprecedented power-grab and usurpation of federal authority,” they continued. “This possibility is alarming, but, when coupled with the proposal’s arbitrary designations and ill-defined terms, it may prove calamitous to the statutory multiple-use mandates of federal lands and responsible development of America’s natural resources.”

Under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, Congress established the so-called “multiple-use” and sustained yield mandate. The law requires the Department of the Interior to open the lands it manages for various uses, including energy development, grazing, recreation and mining.

Allowing foreign countries, companies, or people to own and manage U.S. land seems wrong.

Our country belongs to its people.

Opening the gates to this could lead to all sorts of problems.

We have already seen pushback from having Chinese companies owning farmland in America.

Let us hope that the Natural Resources Committee can effectively shut this down.