Bingo! I was born and raised in Nevada, and now live in Utah. Nevada has the Largest portion owned by the FedGov (84.5), and Utah the second largest amount (57.4), so I understand completely. No one back east seems to understand this, and it is an important issue.
You are absolutely correct, the EPA and other agencies further dictate to states what they will and will not do with the land, and they are claiming more and more territory. I suspect it will be given to foreign governments, ala “National Parks nor U.N.” baloney. In Utah, Newly Appointed Gov Herbert (Took Huntsman’s seat when he became an ambassador or whatever he is now) threatened eminent domain on some federally owned lands. I don’t like Herbert, but that move was gutsy. He’s not my favorite candidate, and there’s a special election for his seat this year. I haven’t heard much on who his competition is, but he claims to want to limit/cut government spending on the same fliers where he says that he’ll oppose any cuts to education spending (a hot topic here, to be sure).
For all his bravado, I hope he’ll be kept on track. Utah, in general, seems to be getting serious (not as much as Montana and Oklahoma), but there’s major issues that divide people here, so who knows how we’ll turn out. We need a strong Governor. Huntsman wwas horrible, and Herbert doesn’t seem all that great to me either. In days passed an (R) would get you elected here, but now it’s starting to get murky.
Whoops, I mistakenly said that Utah was second in the amount of land owned by the fedgov. It’s 3rd, after Alaska, but Second in the lower 48. Sorry!
Were I in Utah politics I’d go ahead with the eminent domain threat, it was not your former governor that made it but rather Your state Legislator which passed a law authorizing the governor to carry out such actions against Federal land.
An article on the matter. As a Utahan I’d focus on supporting and encouraging them efforts. Perhaps to start a controversy to make the case to the rest of the U.S. about the serous issues of Federal land Thief.
As for selling the land to foreign governments I don’t see that as being a problem as the minute the land is out of Federal control they lose the ability to uses the supremacy clause to assert unlimited authority over the land.
We shouldn’t care who has titled to the land as long as its not the Federal Government. Simply because anyone and everyone else would be unquestionably under the authority and jurisdiction of the state.
Technically the Federal Government’s land within the bounties of the State is suppose to be under the same Jurisdiction. But you know the same old corrupt truth about the Federal governments “judgment” about the extent of their own powers.