Time to Privatize Federal Public Land

By Lawrence J. McQuillan  •  Friday January 15, 2016 12:40 PM PST  •  3 Comments

In a recent New York Times commentary titled “Give States Control Over Public Land Out West,” Robert H. Nelson wrote: “The federal government owns almost half the land in the American West—even California is some 46 percent federal land.” Here is what surface and subsurface federal ownership looks like on a map.

The theory behind federal land ownership, as Nelson noted, was that the feds would manage land “more efficiently” and by “the best experts.” But time has proven this to be untrue. Federal agencies that manage public lands such as the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management have been stuck in the quicksand of political gridlock and bureaucratic paralysis that prevent them from addressing quickly and effectively critical concerns of forest health such as wildfires and invasive species.
Nelson also noted that federal agency dysfunction prevents the proper management of “ordinary” uses of public land such as livestock grazing, timber harvesting, water rights, mineral rights, and trail and campground use. The current Bundy protest in rural Oregon has some of its roots in federal mismanagement and abuse of these activities.....It’s past time to auction federal public land so it’s in private hands not under federal or state government control.

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