Give States Control Over Public Land Out West, by
Robert H. Nelson, 1/11/17, New York Times
Robert H. Nelson, a professor
of public policy at the University of
Maryland and former top economic analyst for the Department of the Interior, is
the author of "The New Holy Wars: Economic
Religion versus Environmental Religion in Contemporary America."
UPDATED 1/11/17 - The federal government owns almost half the land in the American West — even
California is some 46 percent federal land. When the decision
was made to keep most of this land under federal ownership and control in the
early 1900s, the theory was that it would be managed more efficiently, and by
the best experts. We now know otherwise: The dysfunction that characterizes so
much of the federal government today extends to the public land agencies like
the U. S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.
Owing to Washington's
political gridlock and bureaucratic paralysis, the right measures can rarely be
passed or implemented as they are needed. By default, the federal judiciary,
and not the agencies themselves, has become responsible for much of the policy
making related to federal lands in the West.
Washington's
political gridlock and bureaucratic paralysis prevent the right measures from
passing through Congress and being implemented as they are needed.
In 2002, for example,
the Forest Service begged for some relief from the "snail's pace" of
its procedural quagmire so it could better address threats of invasive species and wildfires, which had
become a "forest health crisis of tremendous proportions." The Forest Service report blamed the "statutory,
regulatory and administrative framework" it was forced to operate under
for keeping the agency from "effectively addressing rapid declines in
forest health.” Mired in political dysfunction, Congress did not respond.
Meanwhile, many poorly
managed western forests — clogged with small “kindling” trees and older dead
trees and branches — erupted into increasingly large, environmentally damaging
conflagrations, requiring billions of dollars to be spent annually on forest
fire suppression. New records for total wildfire acres burned in the United
States were set in 2000, 2004, 2005, 2006 and, most recently, in 2015.
Wildfire prevention is
only the greatest federal management failure when it comes to public lands in
the West. On most of these lands, excluding units of the national park system
and public land wilderness areas, the federal government manages more ordinary
uses — such as livestock grazing, timber harvesting and trails and campgrounds.
Elsewhere in the U.S., state and local governments and private land owners
operate with much greater flexibility and attention to local circumstances. So,
one good option would be to transfer “ordinary” public lands (about 70 percent
of the federal total) to the western states.
From 2008 to 2018, US
forests have suffered an average of 54,268 forest fires destroying an average
of 6,096,190 acres per year. That adds up to 60 million acres over the 10 year
period as of 10/19/18. In 2018 we’ve lost 8,155,979 acres so far in 2018.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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