Some 50 political leaders from nine Western states gathered in Salt Lake City this month to discuss plans to wrest control of millions of acres of public lands from the federal government. One wonders whether, like a dog chasing a car, they've figured out what they would do with the land if they got hold of it? In any case, that's unlikely to happen, based on decades of court battles and settled law.
Nevertheless, these angry legislators and local commissioners seem determined to waste time and energy on this futile effort, propelled by a warped sense of history and priorities. So allow us to remind them -- and their constituents -- why they're wrong.
Recent headlines have focused on Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his gun-toting supporters who faced down the federal Bureau of Land Management in a dispute over grazing fees. Bundy is nothing but a scofflaw. But his insistence on freeloading pales in comparison with the demands of some of these politicians.
Several Western states have already passed laws and launched lawsuits to pry land -- some of which includes valuable oil, timber and minerals -- from the federal government's hands. The main argument, put forth most forcefully by Utah, is that when Congress passed legislation admitting the state to the Union, it promised to turn over federal lands. Except that the legislation says the opposite: that Utah residents "forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands."
Another argument: The U.S. government's guarantee that new states would be admitted on "equal footing" means that the government should have ceded its property at the time of admission, as it did in the existing states. Except that too is not true. Courts have held that the equal-footing guarantee applies only to political representation.
Further, the federal government controls so much land in the West because homesteaders, during the nation's westward expansion, didn't want the mostly unfarmable land. In the decades since, a national mood of conservation in the name of the public interest has led to continued federal control, trumping proposals to sell the often mineral-rich land, which now defines the vast swaths of relatively unspoiled nature in the western third of the Lower 48.
There might be a legitimate political question as to whether the federal government has done a good job of owning and managing so much land. But these reborn Sagebrush Rebellion efforts are a waste of time and taxpayer money and are steeped more in a reactionary embrace of states' rights than civic leadership. The courts, and the voters, should stand firmly against these expensive distractions.
Los Angeles Times
Donald Sterling: Says racist comments, gets burned at the steak, gets fired.
Al Sharpton: Says multiple racists gomments, gets his own show on a liberal tv network.
GOP hero Bundy is a racist welfare taker. Donald Sterling is a registered Republican racist. The Duck Dynasty Billy Bob is a conservative xian. Even low info rubes should be able to see the pattern.
Looks like our resident teabaggers are only able to muster weak ad homs today.
Not all dudes named, Buzz, live in their mom's basement and post in their PJ's ...
Biut some do
Fuzz on the brain today Buzz? Your comment needs something, oh I know, as you're always quick to scream out,"Citation Needed" well Fuzzy Buzzy can you prove your statement or are just Baiting?
Not all Republicans are racist, but all racists are republican.
Clearly this reasonable editorial from the Los Angeles Times found its way accidently into the pages of the Wooster Daily Record. I'm sure that once the error is realized, we'll be back to a steady diet of trash from Mark Kovacs and the like.