Lame Duck Land Grab

American Spectator ^ | 11/12/10 | Chris Horner

[opentalk]

"Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) is hoping to pass a package of public lands and wilderness bills during the lame-duck session of Congress. Bingaman's panel has sent more than 60 bills to the floor this session that would create new national parks, monuments, wilderness areas and wildlife sanctuaries. Now he's hoping to bundle them into an omnibus measure for Senate passage before the 111th Congress adjourns, spokesman Bill Wicker confirmed today."

Can't get cap-n-trade? Doesn't matter. Just a symptom. Not the disease. The ongoing *direct* land grab (mostly, but not exclusively) out West continues apace while other regulations seal off the land less directly by effectively taking its most productive use. As I opened Chapter 8, "Domestic Disturbance", in Power Grab:

"Immediately upon taking office, President Obama rushed to seal off our domestic energy supplies from public access. In a frenzied offensive, he intensified the long-running, multi-front campaign by his allies seeking to block production and use of the abundant coal lying beneath the ground.

[kittymyrib]

The federal government has no right to seize state lands. States should take this to the Supreme Court.

[oldironsides]

I invite everyone to look up the map of America and see how much land is under the thumb of the government.

[pepperdog]

They should be selling the the already obscene government lands rather than restricting more land. This administration is truly disgusting!

[centurion316]

Considering the things that must be done in the lame duck session, these pet project items don’t stand much of a chance in the limited numbers of legislative days available.

Their advocates will put on a show of course, so that they can assure their financial and political backers that they are working diligently on their behalf. When the lameduck session grinds to a halt, this and many other schemes will die the natural death that they so richly deserve. That’s one of the prices that the Liberals will pay for putting so much time and energy into Obama Care.

[hinckley buzzard]

The problem is that in the southwest and mountain west there are vast expanses of land that have always been considered government lands, by default I guess you could say-- Never titled to a private party. Much of this action is simply re-categorizing land the government already owns.

It matters where there are issues of natural resources at stake: oil, timber and grazing leases and such.

Otherwise, the fact is much of the western lands are unsuitable for development anyway so there may be some merit in preserving it in its natural beauty.

[cotton1706]

Every unanimous consent request in the senate should be denied. Every one. Including the reading of the journal. Let them accomplish nothing, and force a vote on everything.

I doubt any republican in the senate would have the balls to do it.

[RC2]

There’s a little know secret about government buying up land. Government likes people living in the cities. They have more control over them. People living in the rural areas are more independent than city people and government doesn’t like it. They buy the land up and you are forced to live in the city because you can’t build on government land.

[K-oneTexas]

The Federal Government owns nearly 650 million acres of land - almost 30 percent of the land area of the United States.

A 2008 article: http://bigthink.com/ideas/21343

291 - Federal Lands in the US Frank Jacobs on June 16, 2008, 8:23 PM

The United States government has direct ownership of almost 650 million acres of land (2.63 million square kilometers) – nearly 30% of its total territory. These federal lands are used as military bases or testing grounds, nature parks and reserves and indian reservations, or are leased to the private sector for commercial exploitation (e.g. forestry, mining, agriculture). They are managed by different administrations, such as the Bureau of Land Management, the US Forest Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the US Department of Defense, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US Bureau of Reclamation or the Tennessee Valley Authority.

This map details the percentage of state territory owned by the federal government. The top 10 list of states with the highest percentage of federally owned land looks like this:

1. Nevada 84.5%
2. Alaska 69.1%
3. Utah 57.4%
4. Oregon 53.1%
5. Idaho 50.2%
6. Arizona 48.1%
7. California 45.3%
8. Wyoming 42.3%
9. New Mexico 41.8%
10. Colorado 36.6%


Notable is that all these states are in the West (except Alaska, which strictly speaking is also a western state, albeit northwestern). Also notable is the contrast between the highest and the lowest percentages of federal land ownership. The US government owns a whopping 84.5% of Nevada, but only a puny 0.4% of Rhode Island and Connecticut. The lowest-percentage states are mainly in the East, but some are also in the Midwest and in the South:

1. Connecticut 0.4%
2. Rhode Island 0.4%
3. Iowa 0.8%
4. New York 0.8%
5. Maine 1.1%
6. Kansas 1.2%
7. Nebraska 1.4%
8. Alabama 1.6%
9. Ohio 1.7%
10. Illinois 1.8%


Even the 10th place is still below the two percent mark. One territory is not specified on the map: Washington D.C. It could be argued that this is the only main administrative division of US territory to be fully owned by the federal government. It could, but that would be wrong – and upsetting to those private citizens who own part of the nation’s capital in the form of their real estate. It would be more correct to state that the District of Columbia by default falls under the direct tutelage of the Federal Government.

Many thanks to Jonathan Leblang and Adam Hahn for signaling this map, which appeared as an illustration to ‘Can the West Lead Us To A Better Place?‘, an article in Stanford Magazine, a periodical for and about alumni from that university.

[olereporter]

“They should be selling the the already obscene government lands rather than restricting more land.”

Absolutely. Something like 60+ percent of New Mexico land is owned by the state or federal government. I think in Nevada it’s more like 85 percent.

Federal agencies from Interior, Ag, to the Fish and Wildlife Service are on a mission to restrict use of “public” land.

[Daisyjane69]

They own damn near everything here in S. Utah.

meh

[Inyo-Mono]

Otherwise, the fact is much of the western lands are unsuitable for development anyway so there may be some merit in preserving it in its natural beauty.

The problem is that once they declare it a "wilderness" area, you and I can't enjoy it anymore. No more riding in a 4WD vehicle on a dirt road to go see it. Much of this land is too dry and vast for hikers to go into too, no water, no one ever gets to enjoy it again. It has already happened where I live.

[La Lydia]

How did the feds get ANY of Texas? When Texas entered the Union, it did so with an agreement that Texas would control the land.

[opentalk]

Great map-
Add to this the amount of mortgages Freddie and Fannie own.

[Ben Ficklin]

You are correct. Because Texas had been a sovereign nation, she was allowed to retain all her lands and disperse them as the State desired.

Federal lands in Texas are recent.

The Big Bend State Park was given to feds back in the 40s. At that time it was 100,000 acres and the feds have enlarged it thru the years by acquisition. By the 1980s Texas had becomes suspicious because of UNESCO and the Rotarians were trying to turn Big Bend into a Peace Park.

When the very large Big Bend Ranch came up for sale in 1988, the State bought it to keep the feds from buying it.

There are 3 small National Forests in Texas that were acquired in modern times. Plus some grass lands and Corp lands adjoining their lakes.

[November 2010]

NEED TO FILIBUSTER. A LOT.

[dufekin]

Some of it is military (e.g., Fort Hood, the various Air Force Bases around San Antonio, Fort Sam Houston, Dyess Air Force Base, etc.) Then there are federal courthouses and bureaucratic edifices, customs houses, dock yards, post offices, interstate highways, and other needful buildings. Texas also contains Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains national parks in the southwest, a move that I am sure they have regretted (or soon will regret).

[hmmmmm]

They’re after Kansas now.
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/11/12/2427510/a-million-acres-in-flint-hills.html

[K-oneTexas]

The federal lands in Texas would be that of national parks/forest or places like Fort Hood, Fort Bliss, and other large military installations, plus two small Indian reservations.

When Texas was admitted to the Union, all the Republic of Texas land stayed with the State of Texas. Being admitted to the Union was done by a Joint Resolution of the two nations Congresses rather than by treaty (is my understanding) therefore Texas kept all it’s public land and didn’t give any away.

[concentric circles]

August 5, 2010 - Leave It Wild.org

"...The chance of an omnibus bill is pretty much dead for the year," said Robert Dillon, spokesman for Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the Energy and Natural Resource Committee's top Republican. "There's just not a lot of Republican interest in moving such a big bill."

"Dillon also said there was unlikely to be time on the crowded Senate calendar, especially if the omnibus ran into opposition. "Even if it's a bipartisan omnibus bill it can still be controversial," he said."

"Such was the case with the last omnibus, which Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) threatened to filibuster in the final months of 2008, delaying the bill through early last year."

"The passage of another public lands omnibus by this Congress is "extremely unrealistic, if not impossible," said Coburn spokesman John Hart, who added that his boss would demand any new spending in the bill be offset by cuts elsewhere..."