“And how would the State’s an counties afford that? It’s not like any state has millions kicking around.”
The way I imagine it would be the Secretary of the Interior sells the land to the State or County for like $ 5,000 or $ 10,000 per acre, and then the State or County could turn around and sell land that they want to sell for like $40,000 per acre. That would win approval.
But if they don’t have the money, then it could just be sold to private buyers.
Very little Federal land is worth more than $5k an acre. And dumping it on the market is not going to do anything for surrounding land values.
There is a lot of moving parts in any of these scenarios. Not trying to be argumentative, but these things have to be done wisely. And that word is not in the government vernacular.