Highest Priority

[Elkduds]

Priorities, please! If we don't enlist every WaptitTalker, Rokslider, MMer, OYOAer, Eastmaner, every customer in sporting goods stores, every real estate shopper wanting "adjacent to public land," every mtn biker, OHV user, peakbagger, tent camper, fly fisher, backpacker, photo taker, tree hugger, every friend and relative, OUR PUBLIC LANDS WILL BE GONE. And every thread on this site will be irrelevant.

SO PLEASE support organizations that advocate for public lands: RMEF, TRCP, BHA. Write and PHONE your US congressional reps, tell them of your opposition to ANY direct or side-door legislation to reduce federal lands, and remind them a lot of voters will hold them accountable for their votes on these bills. Those that continue to betray us must be fired by voters.

Mods, please let me know if this is too political for this forum. I hope not, because without public lands this will be a small, dull forum.

[Tigger]

Agree wholeheartedly. I think this is the biggest threat to elk hunting there is right now. Randy Newberg has a great series on this on his youtube channel. He gives a lot of info.

[RAMMONT]

It's too bad that the forum is overrun with these progressive propagandists that keep touting how the Federal Government protects our public lands so well when the fact is that we already have state controlled lands and they are protected far better than the federally controlled lands.

Sorry but I don't support this fight against the states controlling public lands.

[Elkduds]

For this vital issue, WapitiTalkers and all public land hunters need not rely on conflicting opinions among Forum posters RE potential effects of transferring federal lands to states. The topic has been formally researched for years. Some findings:

http://slf-web.state.wy.us/osli/News/Fi ... edLand.pdf

http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/ ... t-PDF.html

https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/ ... /pa276.pdf

http://unews.utah.edu/university-of-uta ... difficult/


Or the basic:
https://www.google.com/#q=transfer+of+f ... +to+states

Please get informed and form your own opinion. Mine is that states want federal lands in order to sell extractable resources. Along the way, states will be unable to afford to maintain these lands. When that happens, state laws will require the sale of these lands to private parties. Then hunting will only be available to those who can afford private access.

[RAMMONT]

And in the interest of being fair and balanced here is my favorite report that explains in detail how states can manage the lands better
http://www.perc.org/articles/divided-lands-state-vs-federal-management-west

This report points out that states already manage lands for public use and that the states manage the lands better than the federal government does.

Also, most of the current bill proposals DO NOT ALLOW STATES TO SELL THE LAND, this false argument that the states will sell the land to big rich guys or exploitative companies is just typical progressive propaganda. Most of the people that want the states to have control are now crafting bills that simply allow the state to have input to the management of the federal lands or request that the lands be retained by the federal government while the state manages the use.

My feeling is that most of you guys have been sold a lie. The federal government's own papers point out that the issue is one of determining who will benefit from state lands, not who will own the land. The question is; Should the federal government reap the benefits of our resources or should our state? As things stand now the federal government allows big corporations and private companies to have exclusive use of lands so that wont change if the states manage the land. What will change is that the states will profit directly from their own management and the revenues will be used to better manage things like clearing the forest of dead trees, game hunting, and mining.

[JKaboom]

Yes indeed, I am very concerned about some of the potential appointees to the department of the interior and department of agriculture. We will see and only time will tell...

[Swede]

I sure don't agree that we have to be progressive propagandists to want to retain public lands and keep them in federal control. I agree with Elkduds on this. Claiming the States manage public lands "better" is an opinion/propaganda. After all there is no definition for what is "better". It is just an opinion. When driving through or walking around, most people could not tell Federally managed land from State managed land. From what I have observed, the States don't have the resources to manage even the fire situations on much of the public land. They do well on the rain forests of western Oregon, but what are they going to do on the dry high fire risk lands of the east side? Some have said the States cannot afford to manage federal lands, so I assume they would charge large fees to the users while cutting services, and/or sell large portions to private owners. Of coarse that is just my opinion too.

[RAMMONT]

From a report produced by PERC http://www.perc.org/articles/divided-lands-state-vs-federal-management-west

• On average, states generate more revenue per dollar spent than the federal government on a variety of land management
activities, including timber, grazing, minerals, and recreation.
• These outcomes are the result of the different statutory, regulatory, and administrative frameworks that govern state
and federal lands. States have a fiduciary responsibility to generate revenues from state trust lands, while federal land
agencies face overlapping and conflicting regulations and often lack a clear mandate.

The idea that the federal government protects "public" lands is a false claim because the they exploit the land just as much as people say that the states do. Most people point to state trust lands and say that when the state sells or exploits these lands it's proof that the state can't be trusted with public lands. The problem with that claim is;

State trust lands aren't public land
State trust lands were appropriated from the "public" land that the federal government had control over
State trust lands were given to the state specifically to be sold or exploited for their resources

So comparing how the states manage or disposes of their trust lands to how the federal government manages public lands isn't a valid comparison. The only information that you can glean from state trust land management is how the states manages the monies that are involved, and the states actually make enough money to pay for the management of their trust lands - unlike the federal government does with their public lands.

No land is truly "public" land, it's all owned by either the federal government, the states, or private parties, the federal government calls the land public more because they took it from the public than for any other reason. The federal government has used land as a cash substitute since our country began. The federal government has used public lands as a way to entice private companies to take risks without having to pay for the enterprise. For example;

Public lands were given to the railroads
Public lands were given to the states for trust land
Public lands were given to mining companies
Public lands were given to lumber companies

If you want to compare public lands owned by the state vs. the federal government it'll be hard to do since the laws that control state land ownership and federal land ownership are different but the states do hold quasi-public lands in the form of parks, wildlife areas, etc. and the number of those state public lands has grown pretty steadily. In 2009 there were 6,600 state parks, as of 2014 there were 10,234 parks. States do close parks and trade/ sell property based on profits and losses but overall they do a pretty good job protecting the public lands that they manage, and that's without having any real access to exploitable resources, most often the cost to manage these lands are defrayed through taxes and fees collected from the users. If federal public land were transferred to (for management and resource usage only - the titles/ deeds still being held by the federal government) the states, some have estimated that the state would most likely create a positive cash flow and do a better job of maintaining the lands than the federal government currently does.

[Elkduds]

Colorado State Land: The Mystery Ranch (name changed) State Park Paradox.

One of the largest state parks in CO is MR State Park, encompassing over 10 square miles of mountain terrain. The park receives about 100 visitors/year. All those visitors are big game hunters that apply through a random drawing and pay a fee of $100-300, plus daily park access fees and state big game licenses. No other public uses are allowed, including no camping for hunters. The property has been a state park for over 20 years, and 100 hunters/year are the only public users that have ever been admitted. Official literature says the Park is in a "resource planning" stage of development.

In a public meeting this fall, the head ranger explained the park's financial limbo thusly: CO Parks & Wildlife Dept. is an enterprise funded agency. Meaning users have to pay all costs of operation of parks, with no funding taken from the state general fund (tax $). This is per the CO State Constitution. MR gets all of its funding from drilling royalties, grazing fees, and hunting permits. Because planners do not project that enough visitors would pay to use the park for camping, fishing, hiking, wildlife viewing, etc., the park has not been developed for public use, and likely will not be. The only possible future expansion of public access that is even remotely considered is a week of mountain biking each summer, again by paid permit, which would have to generate fees to cover all costs associated w that use: enforcement personnel, road and facility maintenance, safety, marketing, administration of fee system, etc.

The state owns a huge park that it cannot afford to develop or use, due to the State Constitution. Except for extremely limited pay-to-play users. Is this the future we need for public lands under state or local control?

Clearly this example is not the only possible scenario for states operating public lands. But the MR example illustrates how state laws and budgets can and do lock the public out of access to public lands, in this case a State Park. And in a fiscal crisis, MR could be sold to private interests. That is made more likely by the fact that state law prohibits it from being used, thus making it a financial liability to the state. This predicts one future of public land management if states manage or own huge public properties such as national forests or BLM ranges.

[Swede]

Rammont, Your argument is hollow. When making money is the essence of good land management, just get out of the way of the log trucks and other carriers of our resources. When making money is the objective, how much will they charge you to go hunting?

[Tigger]

In my opinion, transfer of title to the states from the federal government is a very bad idea and here is why. Consider:

1. The state land boards are under legal obligation to show a profit from management of the lands under their control. If they do not, they are required to sell the lands. This can go wrong for the general public in a number of ways. Some bean counter generates a report that says this or that parcel doesn't generate a profit and must be disposed. Public land gone. Evaluating a specific parcel can be extremely hard to counter this claim even though the outdoors industry contributes billions of dollars into the economy. But that one parcel.....how much of the billions is attributable to that one?? Some bean counter writes a report...there is NO credit given to recreation use on that land unless it directly creates a profit for that land trust. So guess what, hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, etc are not even on the list of priorities to managing this land.
1a. Note that in Colorado, you cannot hunt on trust land unless it is leased to the Division of Parks and Wildlife. So in Colorado that would all immediately be off limits unless Parks and Wildlife came up with some serious $$$. And do you think that is going to fly politically? Parks and Wildlife needing many millions to lease trust land for hunters?
2. Which state's political process do you trust to not change the rules next year? 5 years from now? 20 years from now? And if you are confident in one, are you confident in them all? Every western state? Sooner or later, some state is going to be in a budget shortfall. A big budget shortfall. And someone will look at that land sitting there doing "nothing". the wrong political party will be in control and a bill will be produced, voted on, and public land gone.
3. I have read that the costs of fire management efforts is approximately equal to that of the budges of the fish and wildlife agencies of the western states. So, if you do transfer, you will immediately need to raise taxes to account for this cost. Could the lands be managed more profitably? Sure, the feds aren't anywhere near perfect (more on this later). But that isn't going to raise meaningful dollars for years. Meanwhile, fire management costs will be needed next summer and those costs will be borne by a handful of states instead of a nation.
4. The feds could do better on management of these lands. Sure they could. But guess what? There is more to this story! The VERY PEOPLE who are prosing this transfer are the ones that are not providing adequate funding to the managing agencies! Talk about dirty politics! They underfund the agencies, then they say, "See, the federal agencies do a poor job" (my paraphrasing).
5. The federal land in question is my land right now. Why should I give up ownership to the states when they certainly do not have my interests in mind. In fact, treatment of nonresidents by states is getting ridiculous. So why would I willingly give up my stake to turn it over to an entity where I have no political voice and no political representation?
6. Each state is able to set their own rules for public access to the land. Now remember, the land boards marching orders is to manage the land for profit. Is public access profitable? I don't want each state to debate that. Want an example? Wyoming prohibits camping on state trust lands.
7. Now proponents of state transfer will say that rules can be set up to make sure the public has access, yada, yada, yada. Okay, back this question again....who do you trust to make those rules? And how long will it take for some Slick Willie lawyer from some major corporation to challenge the rules in court and win?
8. And in the unlikely event there is someone out there saying, "Hey, maybe privatization is a good thing", go look up the Wilkes Bros Durfee Hills debacle. The ultra rich buy up the land and lock out the public.
9. I read your PERC report. It is all about money. Is that all there is these days? Money, money, money? Is there not value in our public access to land that cannot be monetized?
10 The PERC report states that the feds have expenses of $16.17 per acre compared to $2.56 for the states. So are we to think that the states will do a way better job managing the land by REDUCING spending? Less than 1/6 of the spending at the state level is going to be better than the feds? Wait until those fire suppression bills come rolling in…..
11. This paragraph from the report scares me a LOT:

These results suggest that as states consider the possibility
of transferring federal lands, they must carefully consider
how the lands would be managed if the transfer were to
occur. Would the lands be managed more like state trust
lands or federal multiple-use lands? A direct transfer of
lands to the states under similar rules and regulations as
federal lands is unlikely to result in lower costs or higher
revenues. On the other hand, if the transferred lands are
managed like state trust lands, their fiscal performance
may improve, but land management practices and existing
rights could be affected in important ways.

12. Or this one (lawsuits, lawsuits, lawsuits!):
As such, parents, teachers, school administrators, and
other representatives of the beneficiaries can hold the
state agencies responsible to ensure that trust lands are
used to generate long-term financial returns.

13. Here is a gem:
Land sales are also authorized under certain conditions.

14.This one should scare the heck out of ya:
Moreover, some revenue generating
activities that occur on state lands do not exist
on federal lands. Arizona, for example, earns most of its
revenue from land sales and commercial leases.

15. the reports does NOT address fire management and suppression efforts. So those costs need to be factored in and whether the states could even swing that is questionable.

[Elkduds]

New Congress, 1st day: Changing Rules to Ease Transfer of Federal Lands to States:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ene ... 5d0a32f2f2

[Elkduds]

Every day there is a new effort in our government to get rid of public lands. This one is a bigger deal than many: http://thehill.com/policy/energy-env...r-federal-land

[Elkduds]

Another new bill to sell national Forest and BLM introduced today: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-con ... %5D%7D&r=2