Why We Stand for the Flag
A veteran businessman who successfully founded and grew multiple businesses in a variety of industries once observed, “No one wants to fail, but the toughest challenges emerge when you achieve your goal, not when you fall short.”
This counterintuitive idea—that success may be more difficult to handle than failure—is not the sort of thing we often hear. Yet, business history is littered with examples. In 1984, IBM posted the greatest after-tax profit of any company in world history until that time: $6.58 billion. Just eight years later, IBM reported the greatest corporate loss ever up to that time: $5 billion, as the business historian John Steele Gordon observed.
Or consider the rise and fall of Polaroid. It so dominated its market that everybody called instant photos Polaroids. The name was literally a household word. It seemed everyone was snapping and shaking their Polaroid cameras—right up until the digital revolution passed the company by and Polaroid filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001, just like one of its instant photographs from decades gone by.
Or consider Yahoo! In 2005, it was number one in the online
advertising market. But after relying too heavily on its marketplace
prominence instead of changing to serve its customers better as new
competition arose, and backing out of potential deals to purchase Google
and Facebook, Yahoo now finds itself in danger of completely
disappearing.
Political Success—or Failure?
It’s not so different in the political, policymaking arena. A few years back, a friend of mine was the majority leader of his state legislative chamber, with the duty—and great power—of selecting which bills to place on the legislative calendar for floor debate, vote, and passage. All others would suffer a swift demise.
During a legislative scheduling session, the majority leader
identified an insurance bill that had been supported by key business
interests, passed the appropriate committee, and appeared to be a solid,
conservative bill for his Republican majority to consider. The majority
leader invited the special interests’ lobbyist to the state capitol to
discuss the impending victory.
What was the problem, then? The lobbyist was very clear: If this bill were to pass in the current legislative session, the lobbyist asked, what would he do next year? If he accomplished his legislative goal, he might not be hired again. Success would mean there was no further need for his services.
In politics as in business, success can be perilous.
The Heartland Institute has achieved significant, measurable policy successes in recent years. One need look no further than two Heartland visits to the White House which occurred almost exactly one year apart.
On June 1, 2017, Heartland’s Joe Bast joined President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden for the official announcement of the United States’ withdrawal from the horrendous Paris Climate Accord. “President Trump made exactly the right call by deciding to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Treaty,” Joe said at the time. “Staying in would make it impossible to implement his America First Energy Plan and result in U.S. taxpayers and consumers paying hundreds of billions of dollars in higher taxes and higher energy costs.”
The successes continued. In January 2018, Heartland’s government relations team planted boots on the ground in Wisconsin on numerous occasions, testifying and counseling lawmakers on the ins and outs of welfare reform. The result of Heartland’s hard work came on April 11, when Gov. Scott Walker signed a package of laws that brought conservative, commonsense, work-focused welfare reform to Wisconsin. We are now working to export these historic innovations to the other 49 states and the federal government.
Heartland’s Successes
The Heartland Institute has achieved significant, measurable policy successes in recent years. One need look no further than two Heartland visits to the White House which occurred almost exactly one year apart.
On June 1, 2017, Heartland’s Joe Bast joined President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden for the official announcement of the United States’ withdrawal from the horrendous Paris Climate Accord. “President Trump made exactly the right call by deciding to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Treaty,” Joe said at the time. “Staying in would make it impossible to implement his America First Energy Plan and result in U.S. taxpayers and consumers paying hundreds of billions of dollars in higher taxes and higher energy costs.”
The successes continued. In January 2018, Heartland’s government relations team planted boots on the ground in Wisconsin on numerous occasions, testifying and counseling lawmakers on the ins and outs of welfare reform. The result of Heartland’s hard work came on April 11, when Gov. Scott Walker signed a package of laws that brought conservative, commonsense, work-focused welfare reform to Wisconsin. We are now working to export these historic innovations to the other 49 states and the federal government.
In late June, U.S. District Court Judge William Allsup threw out a lawsuit brought by left-wing city officials in San Francisco and Oakland, who were attempting to hold five of the world’s largest oil companies financially liable for rising sea levels and other alleged damages from manmade global warming. In many cases, the supposed damages had never occurred.Heartland Institute policy advisors joined an important amici curiae brief answering the judge’s call for a “climate tutorial”; Heartland submitted a Policy Brief, “The Social Benefits of Fossil Fuels,” to answer Allsup’s questions about the benefits of fossil fuels; and Heartland experts published key op-eds—all of which helped to win the “Climate Trial of the Century.”
Ah, winning. It never gets old.But wait, there’s more. Remember I said that there were two
visits to the White House? Well, almost a year to the day after Joe’s
visit, I was invited to the White House to watch Trump sign into law the
Right to Try bill, groundbreaking legislation promoted by The Heartland
Institute that will help terminally ill patients and their families
gain greater access to potentially lifesaving medications that have
passed the Food and Drug Administration’s safety protocols and await
full approval, providing hope to tens of thousands of families.
As we roll through the halfway point of 2018, I am happy to report The Heartland Institute has reached the zenith of its success—so far. There are many battles yet to be waged and wars to be won in the weeks, months, and years ahead.
Some might suggest that now is the time to rest, to take the foot off the pedal for a bit and enjoy the fruits of our labor. I’m guessing the executives at IBM, Polaroid, and Yahoo might have thought the same thing, and look where that got them!
The Heartland attitude is markedly different from those businesses’ and many other think tanks’. It is perhaps best summed up by Heartland friend and retired U.S. Air Force Col. John A. Warden III, a Vietnam War combat pilot and the architect of the air campaign strategy in Operation Desert Storm. In his book written with business consultant Leland A. Russell, Winning in Fast Time, Warden lays out what many politicians, lobbyists, and businesses just don’t get about success: “When in doubt, attack. When you take the offensive, you have the opportunity to achieve exactly what you want because you set the agenda and the timetable.”
I promise you, we at Heartland will continue to press the attack in the war for America’s future, not rest on our laurels. We will work diligently to set the agenda and take the fight to those who oppose our personal liberties, not wait for their attacks. We will remain on the offensive, always looking for new successes, not simply defending our past victories. That’s how all vital wars are won, and nothing is more important than this war for freedom.by H Sterling Burnett
The Department of the Interior (DOI), under the leadership of Secretary Ryan Zinke, has reversed Obama administration policies that hindered state wildlife management, harming hunters and anglers in the process. Consequently, sportsmen are now able to hunt and fish without undue restrictions, and nature-lovers are able to enjoy the great outdoors more fully.
On his last day in office, Dan Ashe, President Barack Obama’s director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), imposed a directive to phase-out the use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle on the 307 million acres of federal land controlled by the agency.
Some FWS wildlife managers and their partners in state agencies expressed objections about the order. The Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA), which represents the 50 states’ fish and wildlife agencies, issued a press statement saying, “the Association views this Order as a breach of trust and deeply disappointing given that it was a complete surprise and there was no current dialogue or input from state fish and wildlife agencies prior to issuance.” Not surprisingly, Ashe’s directive did not last long. As one of his first official acts, Zinke rescinded Ashe’s lead ban.
According to John Jackson III, president of Conservation Force, “this directive skipped the normal regulatory process, including scientific and public input—with good reason, because there is no sound conservation basis for the order. This was clearly a payoff by the outgoing Obama administration to radical environmental allies.”
With the support of the Trump administration, Congress used the Congressional Review Act to rescind an Obama-era takeover of wildlife management on public lands in Alaska. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which designated 157 million acres for national parks, national wildlife refuges, national monuments, wild and scenic rivers, and national forests. As a compromise for seizing so much land, the federal government recognized Alaska’s authority to manage various natural resources, including fish and wildlife, on the vast majority of the lands appropriated by the federal government.
Contrary to ANILCA, the Obama administration took management of more than 78 million acres of Alaskan land, halting the Last Frontier’s management of predators on these lands. With President Donald Trump and Zinke’s encouragement, Congress reversed this action, returning wildlife management back to its rightful place: state officials.
Obama designated an unprecedented amount of federal land as national monuments, banning hunting and fishing across millions of acres of land and water, which undermined sound wildlife management. Trump requested Zinke review all the national monuments declared in the past 27 years to determine if they were sound decisions. Zinke recommended cutting the size or changing the management of 10 monuments. So far, Trump has followed Zinke’s advice on two monuments: reducing the size of the Bears Ears National Monument from 1.5 million acres to 220,000 acres and cutting the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument from two million acres to one million acres, reopening millions of acres for outdoor recreation.
In November 2017, Zinke acknowledged the critical role hunters and anglers have played in wildlife and habitat protection and improvement with the establishment of the International Wildlife Conservation Council (IWCC). Under the American wildlife conservation model, taxes on guns, ammunition, fishing tackle, and other hunting and fishing equipment, combined with state and federal license sales, fund the vast majority of wildlife and habitat recovery, protection, and management efforts.
Zinke selected experienced members of the hunting, fishing, and wildlife management community to serve on the council, which will advise DOI concerning how to improve wildlife conservation abroad and expand the public’s awareness of hunters’ contributions to wildlife conservation and in helping wildlife law enforcement.
In his statement announcing the formation of IWCC, Zinke said, “built on the backs of hunters and anglers, the American conservation model proves to be the example for all nations to follow for wildlife and habitat conservation.”
As one of its first acts, to combat poaching, IWCC recommended DOI allow the importation of the heads and hides of African elephants and lions taken on trophy hunts. IWCC said the species would go extinct without anti-poaching programs funded in large part by the fees paid by trophy hunters to take them.
FWS agreed with the decision to reverse the Obama administration ban on trophy hunting and importation. FWS determined revenue from permits to hunt elephants and lions, among other species, aids long-term conservation of the species by providing additional resources to anti-poaching and other conservation efforts.
More recently, in mid-May, Wyoming announced it would hold the first grizzly bear hunt in the lower 48 states in more than 30 years. This only happened because DOI announced it would not reinstate protections for the bears in and around Yellowstone National Park. Grizzly bears had been protected under the Endangered Species Act since 1975.
The population of grizzly bears now exceeds 700, well greater than FWS’s population goal for the region. Accordingly, FWS concluded the bears were no longer endangered and delisted them, leaving it to the states to develop management plans to maintain bear populations at sustainable levels.
As a result, limited public hunts for grizzly bears should begin soon. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department voted to approve a limited grizzly bear hunt in the fall of 2018. Wyoming’s proposal would allow, at most, 22 grizzly bears to be killed by licensed hunters.
Idaho, with a much smaller population of grizzly bears, would allow just one bear to be taken this fall, while Montana has decided not to permit grizzly bear hunting yet.
Zinke has also opened hunting and fishing on hundreds of thousands of additional acres of the nation’s wildlife refuges. National wildlife refuges are bought and paid for with fees from hunters and fishers. In November 2017, FWS finalized regulations opening or expanding hunting and fishing opportunities on 132,000 acres on 10 national wildlife refuges located across eight states.
On May 31, FWS issued proposed rules to open an additional 248,000 acres in the national wildlife refuge system to new and expanded hunting and fishing opportunities. FWS has proposed to open three new refuges to hunting and increasing hunting and fishing activities on 26 refuges. If the rule is finalized, there would be 377 hunting and 322 fishing wildlife refuges in total.
Thus far, Trump and Zinke have been allies and advocates for hunters, anglers, and anyone who thinks wildlife and wildlands are best managed by local professionals—not politicians. As an outdoorsman myself, I can only hope they continue their efforts on behalf of the sports and wildlife I love.