Today the House of Representatives approved legislation to fund the nation’s federal intelligence agencies for fiscal year 2012. The bill – H.R. 1892 – would provide a confidential amount of money to the Director of National Intelligence for the operations of the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, the DEA and military intelligence services, among others.

Perhaps of most interest, locally, is a particular amendment to this bill that was offered by Rep. Mike Thompson. This amendment – which, like the rest of the bill, passed the House by a vote of 384-14 – would direct the federal intelligence community to study the ways in which it might combat drug cultivation on federal lands.

“Our public lands have been taken away from us by foreign drug traffickers,” Thompson was quoted as saying in a press release this morning. “That is simply unacceptable and must be stopped. This bill will increase coordination between our intelligence community and local law enforcement to help put an end to the unacceptable levels of violence, and the devastation to our natural resources that come as a result of these illegal drug grows in our forests.”

But would such efforts be confined to “foreign drug traffickers”? The amendment itself defines the threat as coming from “a drug trafficking organization or other actor involved in drug trafficking generally.” Presumably the Director of National Intelligence, who is required to submit a strategy one year after the bill becomes law, will distinguish between the activities of American criminals and those of foreign nationals. Overall, though – am I right in thinking that this would likely mark the largest federal law enforcement involvement in Emerald Triangle weed cultivation since Operation Green Sweep?

According to Thompson’s press release, the Senate is due to vote on the bill later this month.