H.R. 1484 (Public Lands Transfer)

[Bean Counter]

I generally agree that keeping things more local is a good idea, but in this case, I do not trust the states to do a good job.  Washington can't manage the ground they have (not the feds are doing a great job) and Idaho is doing even worse.  Nevada and Utah would sell their lands off to the highest bidder.  There goes any of that recreational opportunity.

I'm dubious, at best, of the states ability to use and manage these lands with a multi use principle.

You actually suppose that the federal government does a good job managing land? 

[bigtex]

I generally agree that keeping things more local is a good idea, but in this case, I do not trust the states to do a good job.  Washington can't manage the ground they have (not the feds are doing a great job) and Idaho is doing even worse.  Nevada and Utah would sell their lands off to the highest bidder.  There goes any of that recreational opportunity.

I'm dubious, at best, of the states ability to use and manage these lands with a multi use principle.

You actually suppose that the federal government does a good job managing land? 

If you read the next sentence he says that the feds don't do a good job either. 

[Bean Counter]

Ok  how about we sell it off to private stakeholders? 

[Special T]

We agree on part of this. The problem is money. The question is how does ownership change the problem?

I you wouldn't see this push if logging, and ranching weren't hobbled like they currently are... and they would be providing the income necessary to support it.

Depending on your take on things, there are economic analyses that show that logging and grazing may actually reduce the amount of income derived from public lands, when watershed restoration, drinking water filtration, recreational income, etc. are factored in.

It doesn't help that the funding of the USFS and BLM is a completely broken system, where they are funded to complete their mission but yet every year have to spend 50% of this on firefighting efforts.

The agencies themselves could be streamlined and made more efficient, but Congress itself is largely to blame for this debacle.

I'd love to see the support for your cost statement. As sportsmen we call and make the case to keep roads open so we don't have to hike 20miles to get to a popular lake when they decide to close a road.

[Special T]

We agree on part of this. The problem is money. The question is how does ownership change the problem?

I you wouldn't see this push if logging, and ranching weren't hobbled like they currently are... and they would be providing the income necessary to support it.

That's true about the anti loggers/grazers.  The loggers have gotten better at collaboration (See NEWFC in NE WA), but the grazers are going to take a political beating if they don't stop acting like separationists.  They really need to work with the other user groups and build some relationships. 

We have tried reaching out to grazers and their argument is that they have everything to lose if they come to the collaborative... they might be right.  But they have everything to lose if they don't, and they will not have relationships built or any trust with other groups to maintain their interests.

If the loggers have gotten better how come we aren't cutting more? Keeping roads open. Care to give your take? @logger

[storyteller]

There is a good article by Hal Herring in Field and Stream magazine, Aug 18, 2016, it is a good read.   Here is a little of what is known:


Nevada was given 2.7 million acres of federal land when it became a state in 1864. All but 3,000 acres of that has been sold off.

• Utah has already sold more than 50 percent of the lands granted to it at statehood.

• Idaho has sold off 41 percent of its state lands since gaining statehood in 1890, which equates to 13,500 acres per year going into private hands.

And the history of land under state ownership is not good. A report by Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, a national sportsmen’s conservation group, cites these figures:

• In Colorado, only 20 percent of state trust lands are open to the public for hunting and fishing.

• To help ease budget woes in Wisconsin, the state is currently in the process of selling off 10,000 acres of state-owned land.

• In Oregon, as timber revenue from it has declined, the state has been forced to auction off the 92,000-acre Elliot State Forest. Oregon was originally granted 3.4 million acres and has only 776,000 acres left.

• In Idaho, a European-esque hunt club has leased state land for exclusive hunting rights.
The Modern Land Grabbers

The new leaders of the so-called “divestiture movement” are not ranchers, at least not in the conventional sense. They are inspired by the work of theorists and political appointees like Terry L. Anderson, who wrote “How and Why to Privatize Federal Lands” in 1999. They are men like Utah State Rep. Ken Ivory, of the American Lands Council, a group advocating for the transfer of public lands to the states. Ivory, who sponsored legislation that would do just that, told reporters that the transfer of the lands was “like having your hands on the lever of a new Louisiana Purchase.” (Of course, in the Louisiana Purchase, the U.S. actually bought 827 million acres from France, paying $15 million. Ivory makes no mention of buying any public land from the American people who currently own and use it.)

Rep. Ivory is not a rancher. He represents the district of West Jordan, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City, but he knows where the money is in American land. His group receives funding from Americans for Prosperity, the main political advocacy arm of Charles and David Koch, of Koch Industries. Ivory’s bill, the 2012 Transfer of Public Lands Act, has been followed by similar bills in the legislatures of 10 Western states. The Utah legislature has passed a resolution to spend $14 million of Utah taxpayers’ money on a lawsuit against the federal government, demanding transfer of all public lands within the state.

“The difference between the land grabbers today and in past years is that they are much more organized than ever before. There is a lot more money behind them than there ever has been,” says Land Tawney, the executive director of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers.

The public lands that were once viewed as useless have now attained fantastic value, on a planet of 7.3 billion people, in the ­fastest- growing developed nation on earth. Dramatic, huge-scale private land holdings across the nation have become the norm, from the recent purchase of 330,000 acres of ranchland in the Missouri Breaks of Montana by the Texas-based Wilks brothers, to Ted Turner’s 2 million acres, the Koch brothers’ 200,000- acre Montana ranch, or the Mormon Church’s ownership of 650,000 acres in Florida and a 201,000-acre ranch along the Wyoming-Utah border. There is little doubt that there would be a huge demand for U.S. public lands, both from our own wealthy residents, from investors, and from ­resource- ­stressed nations like Saudi Arabia and China.

Basic natural resources are most at risk. “Think about the water we’d lose access to if these lands were privatized—70 percent of the headwaters of our streams and rivers in the West are on public lands,” Tawney says. “That is why the lands were set aside in the first place. We knew that under federal management we’d be able to harvest timber and still protect the water resources. With private ownership, there was no guarantee.”

And “no guarantee” applies to hunting and fishing, too, Tawney says. “The transfer of these lands to state control would change American hunting forever. State lands have an entirely different set of rules for management. And private lands are mostly not accessible for the average hunter. The experiment, unique to our country, where the fish and wildlife and the public lands belong to the people, well, that would be the end of that.”

For Randy Newberg, whose TV shows On Your Own Adventures and Fresh Tracks are based on nonguided public-lands hunting, the transfer or privatization of public lands is what he calls a “cold dead hands” issue. “I will never give up fighting this terrible idea,” says Newberg, who has represented hunters in Congress and state legislatures. “For me, America without public lands is no longer America.”

The way to fight it? Contact your congressional representatives. “Tell them you want no part in these schemes to transfer or get rid of our public lands,” says Land Tawney. “The system works. Your voice still counts as an American. But only if you use it.”

Not all of us are top 3%ers

[Special T]

So then all the hard line "conservationists" need to realize some logging and ranching to pay the bills are a better option. Perhaps those in the usfs need to do a basic cost benifits analysis  on thier sue and settle games  vs falling timber and grazing beef.

[bigtex]

WA DNR recently sold some land near the Tri-Cities for nearly $10,000,000... As we all know WA DNR has a lot of landlocked land, which for them is OK because generating revenue off that land (mainly via logging) is their #1 purpose, not obtaining access for citizens. In comparison, BLMs management plan for eastern WA is to either obtain public access for landlocked land or dispose of it and use the funds to acquire publicly accessible lands.

Most agree that the feds aren't doing a great job at managing the lands. Most agree that state management is not great as well. One difference is that the states have a much easier process of selling/disposing of their lands then the feds. In most cases the feds need a congressional bill to pass in order for any land to be sold, let alone transferred to another agency. In comparison, WA DNR sells state land just about every month.

Who decides which DNR land gets sold?? The Board of Natural Resources which consists of the Public Lands Commissioner, the Governor or their designee, the Superintendent of Public Schools, the Director of the Univ. of WA Forestry program, the Dean of WSUs Agriculture program, and a county commissioner (currently Clallam County.) So yes, the people who are approving the sale of DNR lands are essentially people from academia......

[Taco280AI]

I don't know why anyone would be for transferring federal land to the states. Will be sold off and we'll lose access.

Have a buddy I agree with on most things but he's all for this and I'm not. Says you can just ask for permission to go hunt it. Why would you take it from the people, sell it to a private entity, and go from having access to having to ask for pemission and getting denied? Makes no sense.

If it goes to the states it will get sold off and we will lose all access, unless you have the $$$$$ to purchase access - if that's even an option.

Why would someone spend their money on something only to let others use it? Would any of you lend your car or truck to a stranger? So why would they lend you their land?

[bigtex]

So then all the hard line "conservationists" need to realize some logging and ranching to pay the bills are a better option. Perhaps those in the usfs need to do a basic cost benifits analysis  on thier sue and settle games  vs falling timber and grazing beef.

How about the feds actually increase their grazing rates too? Most states charge exponentially the amount for grazing then the feds do.

I've had more kidney stones in the past 40 years than the amount of times the feds have increased grazing fees...

[Special T]

So then all the hard line "conservationists" need to realize some logging and ranching to pay the bills are a better option. Perhaps those in the usfs need to do a basic cost benifits analysis  on thier sue and settle games  vs falling timber and grazing beef.

How about the feds actually increase their grazing rates too? Most states charge exponentially the amount for grazing then the feds do.

I've had more kidney stones in the past 40 years than the amount of times the feds have increased grazing fees...

Probably needs to happen. You do realize however that this movement is pushback from all the bunny hugging  that has cost people jobs and by extension access.

There is a LOT of mature timber on usfs land here on the west side that needs harvesting. Do we need to cut it all? Of course not. The BS spotted owl and assorted pick a critter shutting down the Forrest is the reason for this.

[bigtex]

So then all the hard line "conservationists" need to realize some logging and ranching to pay the bills are a better option. Perhaps those in the usfs need to do a basic cost benifits analysis  on thier sue and settle games  vs falling timber and grazing beef.

How about the feds actually increase their grazing rates too? Most states charge exponentially the amount for grazing then the feds do.

I've had more kidney stones in the past 40 years than the amount of times the feds have increased grazing fees...

Probably needs to happen. You do realize however that this movement is pushback from all the bunny hugging  that has cost people jobs and by extension access.

There is a LOT of mature timber on usfs land here on the west side that needs harvesting. Do we need to cut it all? Of course not. The BS spotted owl and assorted pick a critter shutting down the Forrest is the reason for this.

I agree. And surprisingly there has been more timber harvesting the past few years on the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie NF then the previous 20. It's just that most of the harvests are small and aren't to the large scale like we used to see. But in terms of amount of trees harvested, we are starting to see an increase.

[Special T]

I don't think the pendulum is swinging back quick enough

[JJB11B]

Use immate labor to maintain it, picking up trash, maintaining roads and facilities... some of it would just have to be contracted out..

[NumaJohn]

Public Lands Transfer is an awful idea, despite that the federal agencies have so often mucked up the job of stewardship.

We all own these lands, and it should stay that way. Teddy Roosevelt and others fought hard to establish a system where even the common person without means could have open spaces to explore, hunt, and simply enjoy.

As bigtex notes, "Most agree that the feds aren't doing a great job at managing the lands. Most agree that state management is not great as well. One difference is that the states have a much easier process of selling/disposing of their lands then the feds." Outdoors enthusiasts of all stripes (including non-hunters and anti-hunters and impassioned hunters) should be rallying to oppose this land grab being supported by the Koch brothers and a host of other elites who would prefer that the federal public lands you and I now hunt be restricted for their own kind, their own development.

By the way, I do not oppose well-planned timber and mining and grazing. In fact, I support those efforts when they are part of a collaborative campaign that takes all reasonable stakeholders into consideration. The Koch brothers and their ilk are not reasonable, in my view, and they will, if left unchecked, strip us all of one of the very best aspects of our great country: the vast tracts of federal public land in the West.

John