Land transfer to states would mean less land access for typical American-
The idea that the states are really the constitutional, legal, rightful owner of the U.S. public lands is without merit.
Origin of U.S. public lands
The United States owns 650-million acres of land. That is about 30 per cent of the land area of the country. At one time the U.S. government owned all — 100% — of the lands west of the original 13 states. This federal land ownership began when the original states ceded their “Western Land claims” in the decade beginning in 1781. Other than these Western lands claims, none of the original public domain was ever owned by states. These lands cannot be given back to the states because the states never had them.
Constitutional authority
There are those who claim the federal government has no constitutional right to own lands except for a few forts and the District of Columbia as authorized in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution. If this was the sum of federal authority, it makes it hard to explain how at the beginning the federal government owned all but the 13 states. Why were not these new territories’ lands instantly given to the citizens, the states, or put up for sale to the highest bidder?
In fact, land acquisition by the United States in North America took place through treaties and purchases, beginning with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and ending with the purchase of Alaska in 1867. Through the years, the federal government acquired 1.8 billion acres in North America. The U.S. Constitution addresses this in what is called the Property Clause, not in Article I, section 8, clause 17. The Property Clause (Article IV, section 3, clause 2) reads, “The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.”
Complete legal federal power over the federal public lands
The Supreme Court has described the power of Congress to make laws regarding the public lands is substantially without limits in the 1976 case Kleppe v. New Mexico, 426 U.S. 529, 542-543 (1976). The United States, thus has full power to manage these lands as it wants, or alternatively to sell some or all of them, give them away, or transfer them. The federal government originally did not want to keep these lands, but only dispose of them in an orderly, lawful way. Over the years, 1.2 billion acres were privatized. Laws such as the Homestead Act and grants such as the railroad land grants are examples of the methods used. Millions of acres were given to the states in land grants. Almost all federal lands in the states east of the Missouri River passed into private ownership. The federal government can grant states some management authority, but it can take it back. The best example is wildlife management. The federal government generally allows hunting and fishing managed by the states on public lands, but it can and does, e.g., endangered species, take that back.
The beginning of federal land reservations
In 1872 Congress created Yellowstone National Park in the unorganized territory of the West — the Park was not preceded by the states of Montana, Idaho or Wyoming. Later Yosemite National Park was created, and in 1891 the “Forest Reserve Act” became law permitting the President of the United States to set aside for federal retention forest reserves from the public lands. Presidents set to reserving lands – President Benjamin Harrison put 13 million acres into what would become the National Forests. Grover Cleveland reserved 25 million acres. William McKinley reserved 7 million acres.
During the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (TR) in 1905 the U.S. Forest Service was created and the forest reserves were renamed “national forests.” TR strongly believed in the conservation of natural resources by a strong federal government, and he reserved 150 more national forests, continuing until stopped by an act of Congress. During his term in office, Congress also created five more national parks; and TR, using the new Federal Antiquities Act of 1906, created 18 national monuments.
Later some of the states, especially Eastern states, began push for the re-creation of federal public lands within their borders. These lands came from abandoned private lands that were in derelict condition and from purchase and gifts from private persons.
FLIP MA and federal land retention
Over the years, public interest in retaining the federal lands grew and interest in disposal declined. This culminated with the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA). FLPMA repealed all the land disposal lands and made it national policy that from now on the general intent was to keep all the public lands. This is the current situation.
In 1976 the so-called “sagebrush rebellion” emerged in some Western States. It was from the rural parts of these states. Many attributed it to the passage of FLPMA, but it could be equally due to backlash from the pressure from conservationists for better grazing and forestry practices on the federal lands, and the desire and move to establish more wilderness areas and national parks. The rebellion calmed down about 1984 and/or was quashed, but it keeps returning in various guises, generally as a demand for land transfer to the states. It has usually been led by ranch interests, but today it is pushed primarily by ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), the Koch Brothers political vehicle for establishing their ideology and policy preferences into law. Typically, mining, fossil fuels, and real estate developers desire the federal lands for development without the environmental regulations, fees and royalties required by federal land management agencies.
Sagebrush Rebellions
If the Western states get hold of the U.S. public lands, a big loser will be those who want to travel, to roam the American landscape freely. Every year there are about a billion visits to the federal public lands. Many Western cities and towns recruit employers and employees with the promise of access to the nearby national forests, parks, and BLM lands. Westerners have a freedom that is cherished, yet not usually formally recognized, in free or low cost and nearly unlimited access to these vast public lands.
State owned and managed lands
All states currently have various state lands. Most open to the public are the various state parks. These are, with a few exceptions, smaller than national parks. Many states also have state wildlife management areas, state forests and other state lands. Most Western states largest holdings are the state school endowment lands or “trust” lands. Idaho, for example, retains 2.5 million acres of school endowment land. It had 3.4 million originally. Utah has 3.4 million acres, Wyoming 3.5 million, Nevada, however, sold theirs and has none. Arizona and New Mexico retain a whopping 9-million acres each. These trust were granted to the states from the federal government at statehood for support (mostly) of the public schools, then a democratic and forward thinking concept, though according to the right maybe a bad idea now to be abolished — public education.
Public access to state trust lands
The state trust lands are not managed for public access or recreation like the federal lands are in part. Parts of the trust lands in many states are open to the public for a fee. In some cases, such as Montana, the public had to fight to be allowed on the trust lands. Only the grazing permittee had been allowed on them. Even today, the trust lands in Wyoming are only open to the grazing permittee. In Idaho there is no right of public access, though many are open in fact because they are unmanaged by the state, being interspersed with federal lands and effectively managed by the federal agency land mangers.
State trust lands and maximum revenue
Few state trust lands are managed at all for wildlife or recreation. Their mandate is for maximum revenue for the public schools. This often means selling the land — privatization. This is the biggest threat to public access. In all the states, most of the revenue from the retained state lands comes from mineral leasing or sale, or forestry (logging). The largest use in acres is usually grazing, but that often barely breaks even. Some think the state grazing programs are a scandal even though most states charge from three to ten times the amount grazers pay to use federal lands. Of course, many think that federal grazing management is scandal too.
Proponents of state management confidently say they will do a better job than the federal government though they rarely give any facts. For example, the Speaker of the Idaho House of Representatives, Scott Bedke, a big public lands grazer, said “Our critics will say that what we’re seeking to do amounts to a big state land grab, or that we are trying to privatizing these public lands,” Bedke said. “Neither of these claims are true. We want to keep these lands under public ownership, but we want to manage them through a different paradigm. Idaho has a very good track record of managing its own public lands and we do it better than the federal government.” However, Bedke gave no facts or figures why Idaho’s 2.2-million acres are managed better than Idaho’s 54-million acres of federal public lands. See: Idaho Speaker Bedke given credit for Western states federal lands’ meeting. Idaho Reporter. The bark beetles he mentioned respect no boundaries, neither state nor federal nor private. They have decimated the forests from the Yukon to Arizona.
Visitors do have to pay to use the national parks and monuments and an increasing number of federal sites on the national forests and wildlife refuges. This growth in fees is controversial, but fee or free, public lands give far more room to roam than private property.