Federal Funding; State Sovereignty Eroding Carrots

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By Danielle Goodrich [Tennessee Stands / Tri-Cities Coaltion] –

What conservative grassroots have learned over the years, is we need to keep an eye on the strings attached to Federal funding. 

In 2021, while Tennesseans and people were losing their jobs to unconstitutional federal mandates, grassroots groups pushed the legislature for a special session to legislate protections.

Governor Bill Lee had just called a special session to award woke Ford motor company $884 million in taxpayer dollars to build an electric car mega-site. 

Republicans ignored that this venture was a left-leaning climate agenda affiliated initiative and embraced the investment. The green investment did not payoff, as it delivered layoffs instead of jobs. 

Tennessee Stands initiated a “Freedom Over Ford” campaign pointing to the Governor’s will to call a special session to award millions in taxpayer dollars to an organization rife with DEI initiatives which counter the state’s conservative culture. Yet refused to call a special session to protect the jobs of taxpayers who were losing them to an unconstitutional federal mandate. 

The pressure did not persuade Governor Lee, however. Grassroots then focused their efforts on the legislature. The effort proved successful and the House and Senate leaders initiated a special session. 

The special session resulted in an Omnibus bill which wrapped a number of protections into one piece of legislation. However, no protection was granted to healthcare workers. 

The unconstitutional Federal CMS mandate, forced healthcare workers to have a rushed-to market, free-from- liability product, many did not voluntarily want.

 SCOTUS acknowledged with the Fed proposed OSHA mandate which tried to use corporations with 150+ employees to force the product on their employees, that the mandate was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled that the Federal government didn’t have the broad authority to mandate medicine on the people. They acknowledged that the Federal government was only granted authority over what is in Article 1 Section 8. Anything outside of that, deferred to the 9th and 10th; the people and the states. 

This is the same reason that Roe and the abortion discussion was sent back to the states. Because Article 1 Section 8 grants authority over coining money, the post office, defense etc. but not over what the Federal government has stolen authority over via the ABC agencies like the DOE and CDC. Article 1 Section 8 does not mention health or education or a number of purviews which the federal government has wrongly stolen for itself. 

And SCOTUS acknowledged this with the OSHA mandate attempt,  yet allowed it with the CMS mandate. For the medical worker mandate they instead looked to precedent. They have been ruling the lives of healthcare workers unconstitutionally, so carry on. 

The state in the special session acknowledged that hospitals needed the medicare money that was attached to the CMS mandate. Therefore, they couldn’t protect healthcare workers in the Omnibus legislation. 

State sovereignty was eroded. Individual sovereignty was eroded. So that hospitals could continue receiving their medicare funding. 

The federal government found a way to grow their authority beyond their limited purview, by dangling carrots. Irresistible carrots that the system had become dependent on.

And it wouldn’t be the first time. Nor would it be the last. It appeared to be a pattern. 

Bill Lee refused to help the Tennessee National Guard as they faced job loss to federal overreach but he did call a special session to respond to the Covenant shooting.

Many Bill Lee loyalists said the reason a Republican Governor was acting unbecoming of a Republican Governor as he looked to infringe on the second, was because of emotion. Bill Lee’s wife knew people involved in the Covenant shooting. Therefore he was acting emotionally. 

 Bill Lee’s special session to infringe on the second despite the second saying “shall not not infringed” we quickly realized perhaps red flag laws were the red herring. And it was more about acquiring some of the $750 million in funding the Federal government was dangling via the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. 

Conservative grassroots blew the whistle on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act funding. Having just gone through witnessing federal funding leveraged for erosion of state and individual sovereignty, those paying close attention weren’t going to be easily fooled.

This time rather than Medicare funding in hospitals. The Fed was looking to gift medicare funding directly to schools for “mental health” initiatives. 

Currently, mental health is dominated by progressives whose solutions are gender surgeries, puppy play and other dangerous Marxist based ideologies.

“Mental health professionals are overwhelmingly liberal, with ninety Democrats to every ten Republicans in the field, as measured by campaign contribution data.”

These are the “experts” we want to evaluate our young people?

Grassroots was loud enough that the legislature denied the funding direct to schools and instead gave it to third party providers like Frontier Health. Better than having Medicare funding directly in the schools, but these are the providers indirectly in schools. 

The Medicare funding did however, go directly to the Sheriffs for mental health efforts in the jails. Should we be concerned of funding strings direct to Sheriffs? They are an office we don’t want the Fed to be able to influence. 

The latest federal funding with strings happens to be Governor Lee’s latest talking point. 

I went to the Carnegie Hotel on February 5th to hear Governor Lee talk about school choice and conservation.

Conservation is a speaking point that looks to have materialized out of nowhere. But those of us who have been paying attention know better. These speaking points typically are in response to some federal funding that is being dangled. 

In walks the Inflation Reduction Act. Which reads, “On August 16, 2022, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, marking the most significant action Congress has taken on clean energy and climate change in the nation’s history. With the stroke of his pen, the President redefined American leadership in confronting the existential threat of the climate crisis…”

I’m sorry, what does inflation have to do with the climate crisis? I’m sure the left has a loony talking point that ties them together, for the “greater good.” The call to action for authoritarianism throughout history. For “the greater good” you must surrender your individual liberty, pay more taxes, and “own nothing and be happy.”

The reasons Governor Lee mentioned requiring us to act on conservation are sound. There is rapid development happening all across the state of Tennessee. We do need some type of land preservation. But, the land preservation agenda attached to the Inflation Reduction Act is another state sovereignty and individual sovereignty reducing agenda.

As American Stewards of Liberty points out here, “The recent Natural Asset Company scam that we stopped as of January 17th has brought forward another critical issue that directly affects landowners.  With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), states, environmental organizations, land trusts, and state policymakers are all chasing billions of dollars earmarked for “conservation” and conservation easements.”

ASL goes on to point that Tennessee has legislation that was entered that goes along with this agenda “In Tennessee, HB 1890, by Representative Lamberth, specifically creates the “Farmland Preservation Fund” to allow Tennessee’s Commissioner of Agriculture to acquire “agricultural easements” that “imposes limitations or affirmative obligations on the owner of the servient estate, the owner’s heir, and assigns with respect to the use and management of the servient land, structures or features thereon…”  

Without specifically saying “conservation easements” in the bill, it in fact defines the term utilizing the keyword “servient.”  Under a conservation easement, the landowner conveys his development rights to a third party, normally a land trust, and legally he becomes the “servient” owner of the land.  The land trust becomes the “dominant” owner because he owns control of how the land will be used – known as the “conservation purpose.”

Tennessee is not the only state to all of a sudden start talking about conservation and entering legislation. 

ASL points out the true agenda behind this money, “All these states and pieces of legislation are chasing the federal dollars now being doled out by the Inflation Reduction Act.  Everyone needs to research their state legislation to see what “conservation” legislation has been filed.  Few are aware the language of the IRA changed the purpose for these programs. However, by taking the federal dollars under the IRA, states will unwittingly be assisting the Biden administration’s 30×30 program in prioritizing the control of agriculture production instead of truly helping farmers and ranchers.”

Devil is in the details, and so is Biden and the Federal government. 

The House AG committee hearing on HB 1890 was brilliant. Representatives Tr, Hulsey, Todd and Fritts were armed with questions, taking their constituents’ concerns seriously. 

Travis expressed concerns as a farmer that the easement was generationally binding, and he didn’t want to bind his family if they wanted to sell. Hulsey asked, “why is this an easement and not a contract?” The response was because they wanted it to be generationally binding. The bill was rolled to address the concerns. However, the easiest way to address the concern of Travis would be to change the legislation to a “contract” instead of an “easement” so it wouldn’t be generationally binding.

The Tennessee Department of Agriculture (TDOA) Commissioner Charlie Hatcher, D.V.M., announced Wednesday that he, along with Governor Lee recently appointed a Policy Chair for Society of American Foresters for TN and KY. What are their goals? 

“Successfully adapting our forests and forest management practices to climate change will require explicit and long-term investments in research, education and outreach to aid in management for these changes. This includes direct monetary support to private landowners and public agencies to explore and implement the technologies and practices that can be used to mitigate carbon emissions and adapt to changing climate conditions, and associated assistance programs for local communities to implement the necessary changes.”  

Will we now try and be convinced that climate change is conservative like infringing on the second amendment was supposedly during the special session? Like investing in an electric car megasite was? Newsflash everyone. Just because a Republican Governor is pushing an agenda, doesn’t make it conservative.  According to the applause at the Carnegie the other day many have either limited understanding of recent history or they have chosen “willful ignorance.”

Another liberal agenda finding its way on the tn.gov site and attached to federal funds is The Carbon Reduction Act. 

The page reads “The Carbon Reduction Program (CRP) is a new federal program created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that  will provide Tennessee $139 million over five years to fund projects that reduce carbon emissions from transportation. CRP funds are flexible and can be used on a variety of different projects – from installing infrastructure to support the electrification of freight vehicles, to constructing Bus Rapid Transit corridors, to on and off-road facilities that promote walking and biking.

The Carbon Reduction Program requires every state to develop a Carbon Reduction Strategy that identifies how funds will be distributed and allocated to projects and strategies that reduce emissions from transportation. The plan must include:

•  Identified projects to reduce carbon emissions
• Strategies to reduce traffic congestion and facilitate alternative modes
• Policies and programs to encourage lower emissions modes of travel
• Approaches to lower emissions from construction of transportation assets”

Last year, via HB 1136/SB 1147 Representative Powers and Senator Niceley tried to make this agenda unlawful because they saw the writing on the wall. 

The legislation caption reads “As enacted, prohibits this state and its political subdivisions from adopting or implementing policy recommendations that deliberately or inadvertently infringe or restrict private property rights without due process, as may be required by policy recommendations originating in, or traceable to, “Agenda 21,” adopted by the United Nations in 1992 at its Conference on Environment and Development, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the U.N.’s proposal to reach net zero emissions by 2050, or any other international law or ancillary plan of action that contravenes the constitution of the United States or the constitution of this state. – Amends TCA Title 4; Title 5; Title 6; Title 7; Title 66 and Title 68.”

They knew that the UN Agenda “for the greater good” looked to infringe on private property rights, individual liberty and God-given rights. They knew that in order to see the plan through in Tennessee, the Constitution would have to be forgotten. 

I have written about the agenda here. 

Liberty Infringing City Plans; Recognizing The 17 SDGs

Basically where the WHO is coming in top down through the Federal government and the proposed treaty to erode national sovereignty while the UN is coming bottom up through our cities. They call it a “global plan implemented locally.”

They experimented on viruses, told us there’s going to be a pandemic, blamed us for being germ breathers, infringed on our rights to move about freely and our sovereignty. Now they are experimenting with weather, saying there’s going to be severe weather, and are blaming us for being carbon emitters where they’ll look to infringe on our rights again.

And The UNs 17 SDGs (sustainable development goals) are in city plans across the state, across the country and across the world. 

They may sound honorable but considering health to the UN meant mandates, stay at home orders, no guidance on addressing metabolic disorders, go home until you are cyanotic then come back to be vented, go to Wal-mart and the liquor store but close your business and don’t go to church, stay home,  let your loved ones die alone, mask children, mask at restaurants until you get to the table, anything but early treatment which had always been the standard, tyrannical orders ignoring the God-given rights of the people, most are right to be critical of their recommendations. 

It looks like the true goal of the UN is to control all land, minerals, water, plants, food, construction, information, technology, surveillance, means of production and those who produce.

One of the documents reads, “Inclusive climate policies in the form of international aid, bioenergy taxes, or domestic revenue reallocation can avert the overall cost of addressing climate change in terms of global welfare (a 3.7% loss) and rather result in a 0.1% gain, at the expense of 0.5% decrease in GDP

of high-income countries used to cover the financial expenses of providing international aid” found on page 33. 

Wait a minute, the US gets to fund climate efforts in other countries? They think that is sustainable. “Global welfare?” “bio energy taxes?” 

More stealing in the name of the “greater good.”

“Achieving universal electricity access across sub-Saharan Africa by 2030 (SDG 7) would require an annual investment of USD 27 billion under existing climate policies, but would require an additional USD 6 billion without climate policies “

Do Americans get to weigh in on our money being spent on electricity in Africa or will it be rolled in unknowingly in some huge climate legislation. 

“Moreover, actions to implement the Paris Agreement through a rapid shift to renewable energies, improvements in energy efficiency, and scaling up of the use of electric vehicles has the potential to generate 24 million jobs by 2030 (ILO, 2018). Thus, by committing to emission offsetting through improvements in energy efficiency, cities not only aid the worldwide effort to combat climate change, but may also profit locally by realizing several associated advantages.”

One thing is quite clear. The leftist, globalist strings attached to these federal programs and funding are not worth it.  Dear Governor Lee, please stop selling us to the federal government and those who want to dissolve state and individual sovereignty.  Thank you.