For over a decade,
State Legislatures in the heavily Federalized western States have proposed
Bills to address the problem of absentee landlords mismanaging federal lands.
These early attempts were defeated, but in 2017, Trump returned federal land to
Utah.
The US Constitution
specifically prohibits the federal government from owning land beyond what it
needs to function with government offices and military forts.
Over the past 10
years, forest fires have destroyed 60 million acres of federal forest land. There are no out-of-control fires on
privately owned forest land.
States should be free
to sell forest land and grazing land and deal with mining and oil and gas
drilling like every other State. The revenue from land sales should go to
roads, bridges, water reservoirs and important infrastructure. The tourist
venues in these Parks are limited in size and could benefit from better
infrastructure.
The opposition to
solving this problem is coming from the Liberals, who want the biggest federal
government they can get. They don’t care
about the US economy. In fact, they want
to crash the US economy to become an impoverished Socialist Republic. They are
in it for the “views”, but how about adding cows to the grazing land. The US
could easily become a net exporter of beef.
The hoax they are
attempting to sell to Western State voters is to hide the economic benefits of
giving federal lands back to the States. The infrastructure improvements would
increase tourist revenue and increase tourist related jobs. But tourism does
not an economy make.
Selling the vast
stretches of forest and grazing land adjacent to these Parks would add
prosperity to these areas. Liberals quote
the tourist industry data below as if to say, this is the best it can get. That’s a lie. The following article has the
Liberal (lies) embedded in each section.
State efforts to ‘reclaim’
public lands,
3/11/13,
Utah - The Outdoor Industry Association, the trade organization for outdoor recreation companies, notes that the outdoor economy—in part based on protected public lands—stimulates $12 billion in consumer spending and more than 122,000 jobs for Utah every year.
(This extraordinary economic resource will be threatened if the state succeeds in its attempt to take over public lands and instead use them for resource extraction.)
Arizona - The outdoor recreation economy in Arizona creates $10.6 billion in consumer spending and supports nearly 104,000 jobs in the state. Yet State Sen. Al Melvin (R) introduced S.B. 1332 in the spring of 2012 requiring Congress to turn over 25 million acres of public lands to the state by the end of 2014, or it would sue. Similar to the legislation in Utah, the Arizona bill would have exempted Indian reservations, national parks, and military lands.
Wyoming - Although the Outdoor Industry Association released data noting that the outdoor economy creates $4.5 billion in consumer spending and 50,000 direct jobs in Wyoming, State Rep. David Miller (R) introduced a bill in early February 2013 demanding state ownership of public lands. The bill—H.B. 0228, known as the Transfer of Federal Lands Study—would require the state attorney general to study “possible legal recourses available to compel the federal government to relinquish ownership and management of specified federal lands in Wyoming,” and would establish a task force focused on the land transfer. The bill passed both houses of the state legislature earlier this year and now awaits the governor’s signature.
New Mexico - The state of New Mexico sees $6.1 billion in consumer spending stimulated by the outdoor recreation industry, as well as more than 68,000 jobs every year. Nevertheless, New Mexico State Rep. Yvette Herrell (R) and State Sen. Richard Martinez (D) introduced the Transfer of Public Land Act in early 2013, calling on the federal government to turn 23 million acres of New Mexico’s public lands over to the state by the end of 2015. It also would create a public lands transfer task force to study the process of taking ownership of these federal lands.
Colorado - Colorado is a hotspot for the outdoor recreation economy, which stimulates $13.2 billion in consumer spending and nearly 125,000 direct jobs to the state. But a handful of members in the Colorado state legislature are attempting to revive a failed attempt of last year’s legislative session by introducing a bill—known as S.B. 13-142—which would require the federal government to turn over all “agricultural lands” to the state. The law’s broad definition of agricultural lands certainly includes the more than 14 million acres of national forests in the state and likely includes its Bureau of Land Management lands.
Nevada - Nevada sees $14.9 billion created by the outdoor recreation industry every year, as well as 148,000 direct jobs. And yet Nevada Assemblyman John Ellison (R) and State Sen. Pete Goicoechea (R) are drafting a bill for the 2013 legislative session that would create a committee “to help broker the transfer of federal land to the state,” according to the Elko Daily Free Press. Legislation is still being drafted as of late February.
Idaho - The outdoor recreation economy creates $6.3 billion in consumer spending in Idaho per year, as well as 77,000 direct jobs. While the Idaho legislature has not yet officially considered a bill to turn some or all of the state’s 33 million acres of public lands over to the state, discussions and preparations to do so are in the works. State Rep.
In this section, we
provide an overview of each of the bills in seven western states and detail
where they are in the legislative process.
Despite this, Utah has
been leading the charge when it comes to state attempts to reclaim public
lands. Rep. Ivory sponsored the Transfer of Public Lands Act and Related Study,
a bill that passed both the state House and Senate and was signed into law by Gov.
Gary Herbert (R) in March 2012.
The bill established a
deadline of December 31, 2014, for the federal government to turn over Utah’s
nearly 20 million acres of public lands to the state, or it will sue.
Utah’s Office of
Legislative Research and General Counsel noted that the case law with regard to
public lands going back to the 1870s gives the bill “a high probability of
being declared unconstitutional.” And the Salt Lake Tribune has called Utah’s
effort “tilting at windmills.”
Despite this, the Utah
state legislature has already appropriated nearly $3 million to cover expected
state legal expenses and has set up the Utah Land Commission to oversee the
process of returning the lands to the state.
(While the bill exempts
Native American lands, national parks, and military installations, it still
could have a major impact on some of Utah’s most special places. One Utah
publication, for example, notes that “While [Ivory] doesn’t say this will
happen, it is possible that the huge coal fields now off limits because of the
Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in southern Utah could be developed
by the new state land commission.”)
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer
(R), however, vetoed the bill in May 2012, surprising many observers due to her
conservative background. She justified her veto by saying she was “concerned
about the lack of certainty this legislation could create for individuals
holding existing leases on federal lands. Given the difficult economic times, I
do not believe this is the time to add to that uncertainty.”
Arizona voters also took
to the polls to fight against a ballot initiative that similarly would have
turned public lands over to the state. Proposition 120, supported by state
Republican legislators, would have amended the state’s constitution to “declare
Arizona’s sovereignty and jurisdiction over the ‘air, water, public lands,
minerals, wildlife and other natural resources within the state’s boundaries.’”
This measure would have included turning the Grand Canyon over to the state,
but the ballot measure was defeated 68 percent to 32 percent.
Rep. Miller is also the
CEO of a uranium mining company and told WyoFile, a local news outlet, that he
got the idea for his bill in Wyoming from Utah Rep. Ivory’s presentation at
last summer’s ALEC conference in Salt Lake City.
Notably, however, the
Wyoming attorney general’s office wrote an opinion stating that Utah’s federal
land transfer laws relied on “a repeatedly rejected reading of the United
States Constitution and a strained interpretation of Utah’s statehood act.”
Jumping into this fray is
the Koch-backed conservative group Americans for Prosperity, which called the
bill “an exciting change” and urged its members to call the state legislature
to express support. On the other hand, the state’s lands commissioner stated
that the bill would be “catastrophic,” and noted that a fiscal impact analysis
shows that if public lands were transferred to the state, the office would
“need 2,000 more employees and an additional $218 million to administer the
land at the same level as the federal government.”
The bill is currently in
the legislative process, and it is unclear what New Mexico Gov. Susana
Martinez’s (R) position is on it.
State Rep. Jerry
Sonnenberg (R) and State Sen. Scott Renfroe (R) introduced the bill in late
January 2013, requiring the federal government to turn these lands over to the
state by December 31, 2014. The bill, however, failed in committee in early
February.
A similar bill failed in
last year’s legislative session after much criticism from public and statewide
opinion leaders. As a Denver Post columnist put it at the time, “We are all hoping this goes
away very quickly.”
Specifically modeled after
the Utah bill, the Nevada bill would create a Nevada Land Management
Implementation Committee appointed by county commissioners, which would conduct
a study anticipating the effects that a land transfer would have on the state
“in contemplation of Congress turning over the management and control of those
public lands to the State of Nevada on or before June 30, 2015.”
Lawerence Denney (R),
chairman of the state’s Resources and Conservation Committee, has expressed
interest in introducing such a bill. Utah Rep. Ivory addressed a joint meeting
of the state’s House Resources and Conservation Committee and Senate Resources
and Environment Committee in late January 2013, lauding the Utah bill and its
merits.
(The idea of selling off
public lands has not, however, seen political success in Idaho. The Associated
Press reports that in the state’s 2006 gubernatorial race, now-Gov. Butch Otter
(R) was forced to withdraw his support for federal legislation that would sell
off public lands in the West to offset costs of Hurricane Katrina—only after
“getting bruised by his political challengers and voters irritated by the
possibility of losing some of Idaho’s prized backcountry.”)
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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