Leaning far to the right on property rights has nothing at all to do with whether or not the federal govt should assume ownership and operate a “National Monument” — that is a quite separate public policy debate.
For instance, suppose I own some rather marginal property of little historical or scenic appeal to anyone. Just because I have every “right” to donate this property to the federal govt does not mean the govt policy should require the Dept of the Interior to accept my property and pay tax dollars year after year to operate there.
My “right” to dispose of the property as I see fit does not confer any right for me to demand that the federal govt accept my property, nor does it give the govt any inherent reason to want to accept my property. The latter depends entirely upon whether it is well justified for the federal govt to create a new “National Monument” and operate it for the public.
Agreed, they are separate issues, except that the property right does apply in this case.
The owner had the desire to give the land to the feds. The owners lobbied, and got the feds to take it. There was no “demand”. It was a willing exchange.
So property rights, coupled with the current authority held by the feds to declare land as a park or monument, came into play here.
Whatever the gov has the authority to do, there will be folks lobbying to gov to take action in that regard. Gov authority includes expenditures taken to affect those actions. That’s why it’s a good idea to limit what authority gov has.
So while I would rather not see the gov pick up another park or monument, I in fact would like to see them dump all parks, not just this one. Nevertheless, if gov has that authority and some eco-sap wants to hand over their property in that fashion, then that’s that.
To me, the “solution” here is to take away gov’s authority to declare land as park or monument.
The solution is NOT to say someone can’t do something with their land, that includes the transfer of it.
It also does not mean the US President “ought” to unilaterally declare a National Monument, imposing his judgment to over-ride all of the objections from the public, the state legislature and governor, and the state’s Congressional delegation.
We have too many National Monuments and National Parks already, not too few, imho. The federal govt is broke, deeply in the red. There is no justification for ANY new commitments that are not of absolutely extraordinary necessity. Clearly this case does not meet that kind of high bar for new federal budgetary commitments.