Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Federal Lands in the West

Corruption is a red herring and has nothing to do with this issue. If you think that states can't do a better job of managing what goes on inside their own borders than the federal government, you're an idiot.

The big problem as I see it would be funding the state management agencies without federal tax dollars.

Denver, and Boulder? Come on, man!! Can you make a point without throwing in a red meat commie/pinko reference?

What I think is, if the state owns the land, then all of the citizens of the state get a say in how it's managed. That's how democracy works. If state tax dollars pay for management, then turning over the decision-making to locals does not seem to be a fair distribution of input. Should locals have more of a say-so than others? Possibly, but I'm not sure how to work that out.

If the majority of locals are ranchers, then putting them in the driver's seat would tend to favor ranchers at the expense of everyone else who's paying the bill. Not a good solution, and it'll never happen.

If a fair price was charged for the industries doing business on public lands, then the tax base problem takes care if itself.

Rather than having token "entitlements", if a fair commercial rate were charged, and those funds put into the local and state economy, no federal funds would be needed.

Again, I stress that there needs to be fail safes in place that keep the corrupt in check, and the best interest of public land served.

Those western states don't HAVE to be welfare states.

States would have to be allowed to manage for profit, the way the forest service did early on. FS used to be a support itself and add money to the treasury.

Kent

If only we could trust them. Rockinbar has some sound thoughts on local management I appreciate. I don't trust the feds, that's for sure, and I see the tide shifting in their management of federal land, but change has been slow up to now.
The problem with "management" of this public land, on the cash-starved state level, is that it probably requires development of the private ownership type to generate revenue. Without development what do you have? Without development, you have wild land. To generate income from wild land, you have to charge users to use it to keep it wild and "producing" financially.

So, you either lose the right to step foot on it at all because it goes private to raise development $$ for the state and stimulate the local building economy, or you get charged to use it, to raise $$ for the state. How is either of these attractive when the alternative is federally owned land available to all, from any state or even any nation, to use with few restrictions?

From a use standpoint, there is no comparison between federal and state ownership. From a cash cow standpoint, the states would clearly manipulate the land to produce cash better. The question you have to ask yourself is, is that what I want?
My answer is no, I want access and use over $$ from development and loss of land.

The "access and use" has to be the main priority.

Not necessarily. I don't know about Oregon, but in CO, big game hunting, fishing, and backpacking on our public lands is a huge economic engine, especially for rural proprietors.

No way the state would do anything to kill that golden goose.

Failsafes are in place at the national level and look what they do in spite of them. That's what you don't understand, men are CORRUPT. If you transfer the land to the states MORE CORRUPT MEN will have access to it and control over it than ever before. Every single man that touches it has the potential to insert his bias and corruption on the decision making process. Keep bringing it lower and lower to the local level and you'll see more and more siphoned off for private use.

Remember, the Constitution is clear and concise, but look what lawyers, politicians, and judges do in spite of it. Don't think for a minute there aren't many many more corrupt people at the local level that would love to get their mitts on this public land. Dirty deals would be the rule, not the exception. And once gone, public land will never be regained from private hands.

Liberal Oregonians would kill that goose just to watch it die, and laugh the whole time.

I sure don't have all the answers. Way smarter people than me need to figure that out.

But I do know that local input goes out the window with the system we have now. The system is rife with special interests that seek nothing more as a goal than to keep ALL of us out of, and off of public lands.

Have you looked at the forest circus budget?

Let's look at Arizona, tell me how grazing and timber would even offset fire fighting costs in the state, let alone make money.

Proper forestry results in far fewer forest fires. That's a fact.

It's a lot more complicated than that, now. The WUI in the new west is a whole new game, and only getting worse.

If it becomes state land, it will soon be controlled by the feds any way through things like the ESA - think sage grouse. Or how about the EPA and their clean air and water regs? They'll NEVER let go.

It'll be the worst of both worlds.

Az...54,9000,000 federal land, 9,800,000 state, 8,800,000 private.

The state makes money on it's land, which is not closed to the public.

The feds have restricted grazing and logging to the point that creates mega fire environments.

Improved facility access fees such as lake ramps and campgrounds are a huge revenue here, plus copper mining.

Kent

Show me some $ figures.

And your fires won't be controlled by logging..

Not directed at anyone, but it seems like the one's critical of the way the lands are managed in the west are the one's not from the west. The one's that think a 40 acre hunting lease is what it's all about.
I could be wrong, but I doubt I am, it seems a lot like penis envy to hear an easterner call the west welfare hunting.

Yeah, I think there's plenty of dishonesty in the argument to make land in the west "profitable".

Men smarter than all of us procured it and made it available for use by all, from ANY state, long ago, and that is the value to not just westerners, but all Americans. Talk to most eastern sportsman and what's their dream? To hunt the west. So who's being short-sighted by wanting to change the west?

'Nuff said.

Interesting... tell that to the folks that lost their logging jobs in northern az and then suffered through the Chedisky and Wallow mega fires recently.

A simplistic answer to your simplistic question of money... less revenue by eliminating logging and more expenditure due to mega fire fighting, equals red on the bottom line.

Kent