I bet a lot of states, not just those in the West would like to get these lands under their control. I presume Congress can make this decision. Hopefully, it can be raised as an issue with a bill that could garner support.
“I bet a lot of states, not just those in the West would like to get these lands under their control. I presume Congress can make this decision. Hopefully, it can be raised as an issue with a bill that could garner support.”
That is unfortunately not the case, out east your talking less than 10% and the land the Feds do retain are simply not worthy of State or private attention in most cases.
Indeed a lot of the lands in the west are even particularly valuable at this time, just as most of the lands the Feds now hold in the west weren’t particularity valuable.
But populations grow and technology changes making lands once unworthy of buying valuable and needed again.
What there is left in the East is only a small faction of the State, Yes no doubt a lot of eastern states would like to take management and tax control over some of it but not all.
All the west really needs is the same right to buy the land the East has enjoyed for more than 200 years. It was the losing of this right in the 1970’s that started the sagebrush rebellion, and numerous other major economic obsticals in the west that eastern don’t have to deal with.
All the west wants is an equal footing with the east in regard to their state’s land. Is that too much to ask?