Based on data provided by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), the Republican Study Conference recently issued a report on the amount of land and buildings owned by the federal government. It revealed that "almost three-in-ten acres in the United States are owned by the federal government," with the government sometimes owning more than half of the land in some states. In California, nearly half of land area is owned by the federal government.
Other key findings of the report show, as of September 30, 2003, 29.6% of all land in the U.S. was owned by the federal government, with total acreage of 671,759,297.7. Some of the states with the largest percentage of federal land ownership were:
1.) Nevada: 91.9% 5.) Wyoming: 50.6% 9.) Colorado: 34.9%
2.) Alaska: 66.7% 6.) Arizona: 50.2% 10.) New Mexico: 34.1%
3.) Utah: 66.5% 7.) Oregon: 49.7% 11.) Montana: 31.3%
4.) Idaho: 66.4% 8.) California: 46.9% 12.) Washington: 31.0%
The District of Columbia has only 26.3% of its land owned by the federal government although it was established as the federal city.
The report also detailed the location of federal land by region: West: 55.5%; Alaska and Hawaii: 36.4%; North Central: 2.9%; South Central: 2.9%; South Atlantic and DC: 2.2%; and Northeast: 0.2%. The RSC study also points out that only 2.4% of federal land is used for military purposes.
For buildings owned by the federal government, as of September 30, 2003 the RSC reported:
-Buildings owned in U.S. by the federal government - 432,791
-Number of square feet of office space within owned buildings - 3.03 billion
-Number of buildings leased by the federal government - 42,246
-Number of square feet of office space in leased buildings - 333.8 million
The report found that about one-fifth of the buildings owned and leased by the government are used for housing.
The General Services Administration published the data entitled "Overview of the United States Government: Federal Real Property Profile as of September 30, 2003." For more information about the article, please visit http://www.gsa.gov .
The District needs to be reduced in size with the outlying areas and populations returned to the appropriate states!