Congresswoman Harriet Hageman emphasized two main points during her Feb. 23 visit to Alpine. They included a warning about Natural Asset Companies and an uncontrolled southern border.

“This is high risk,” she said of the natural asset proposal first discovered in September on the Securities and Exchange Commission. “These companies would buy and sell natural assets of national parks, the BLM and other protected lands.” she explained. “They would exclude development, no mining, no oil and gas or assets.”

Hageman addressed concerns about natural asset’s proposal in an extensive report released at the end of the year when she, along with 31 cosigners, sent a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Erik Gerding demanding answers to several questions while calling for an extension of the public comment period for their Natural Asset Companies (NAC) rule.

“This proposal is complex and based on a nontraditional investing mechanism of questionable legality that would allow for the buying and selling of undefined ‘rights’ to certain private and public lands, including to foreign nations and noncitizens, to terminate and prevent all economic activity on such properties.” Hageman advised. “Once in control of the land, NACs will be prohibited from engaging in ‘unsustainable activities’, including fossil fuel development, mining, logging, and grazing, and the proposal cites the need for this because radical environmental policies and ESG are not moving fast enough.”

Rep. Hageman warned, “This misguided ‘rule’ has the potential to fundamentally change U.S. land access, management, use, and ownership as we know it. As if that weren’t bad enough, the rule places no limits on who can buy these lands – China, Russia, Iran, and other bad actors would be free to participate and shut down U.S. energy and mineral production.”

She warned in the report, “The Biden administration is worshipping at the climate change altar – and the sacrifice they are offering is use of the land that belongs to all of us.”

Hageman and others in Congress delayed the proposal with extended comment periods.

“The bottom line is that this is more bad rule making by Biden’s bureaucrats that would take away more of our rights, and it must be stopped.”

The open border policies were also part of the Alpine discussion. She called it the “invasion of our borders” and noted her recent trips to Texas and Arizona. She recalled the border at Eagle Pass, TX a “complete catastrophe” and a problem that would have an effect on future generations.

“We went to Eagle Pass where they were processing 5,000 a day.” She said the cartels have made an estimated $1.6 billion in a border crossing program where people cross the border at the will of the cartels. “They don’t cross the border without going through the cartel.”

In one area the Congresswoman reported seeing an area where “military aged” men from the middle east, China and South America were located separate from women and children. “It’s astounding who they are sending,” she said. “It’s a crisis far beyond anything I could imagine and it’s happening in our country.”

“That’s why I voted to impeach Mayorkas,” she concluded, speaking of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.