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State land-grab is enough to be called treason

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

Treason – from the Latin traditio and the French trader – means “to hand over or betray.” Merriam’s 11th further defines treason as “the betrayal of a trust: treachery.” Sadly, I can think of no more apt term to describe the intent of Colorado Senate Bill 232.

The purpose of SB 232 is to pave the way (via a taxpayer-funded committee) to “hand over” America’s pride of public lands to state control – in preparation for further “handing over” from the state to private for-profit interests, via leasing and outright sale, thereby deleting the public from public lands.

For those unfamiliar with the issue: A growing number of radicalized elected officials across the West, definitely including Colorado, have been duped by a special-interest-funded front group from Utah – the America Land Council – into proposing federal and state legislation promoting the “transfer” of ownership and management of America’s 640 million acres of public lands to the states in which these U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and other public lands are located. The self-serving ideologues pushing this scam claim that public lands will remain public under state ownership – a claim that history and the wording of the proposals themselves give the lie.

Colorado today retains only 2.5 million of the 4.5 million acres of trust lands it was originally granted by the federal government at statehood. Moreover, those remaining state trust lands are managed to maximize income, which in turn minimizes public access. Currently, only 18 percent of Colorado’s state trust lands are open for public use. The remainder is leased for energy development and other income-generating ventures that exclude the public.

Why should we expect anything different if the state gains control of about 24 million acres of America’s (not exclusively Colorado’s) public lands? And how else can we read the draft wording from SB 232, which plainly states its intent to facilitate – at taxpayer expense – “the development of a proposed plan for the administration, management, and use of the public lands, including, without limitation, the designation of wilderness or other conservation areas or the sale, lease, or other disposition of those lands.”

While transferring federal public lands to state control may at first sound reasonable to voters and politicos frustrated with the federal government – and granted, the Forest Service and BLM often fall short of their duties – it takes little investigation to recognize that such a transfer defines a brilliantly bad idea. For starters, states flat can’t afford to manage millions of acres of public land. Firefighting costs alone would snap most state budgets like stale pretzels. The feds faced a $1.74 billion hit for wildfire management on the nation’s public lands in 2013, and with ongoing drought and insect infestation, it will get worse. In point of fiscal reality, the beneficiary states would be “forced” to immediately start leasing and selling America’s commonwealth in order to “make ends meet.”

State ownership of public lands would not only be unaffordable to maintain, but it would also provide the double-fiscal whammy of greatly reduced state income. In Colorado, hunters and anglers alone – just one segment of the outdoor recreation market – spend more than $1.3 billion annually, helping to support more than 18,000 jobs. With 72 percent of western sportsmen surveyed reporting they hunt and fish on public land, public land-based recreation clearly is big business. In many places, in fact, it’s the biggest business, being both culturally and economically indispensable to many poorer rural counties.

No surprise that surveys also show that 71 percent of sportsmen are against state usurpation of public lands: They know it would mean the end of everything for them. And sportsmen are but slice of the sprawling public-lands recreational-industry pie. Yet, “conservative” pols are not listening to their constituents, but rather toeing a politically suicidal party line. In fact, Colorado’s Cory Gardner was the only western-states Republican U.S. senator to vote against the Murkowski Land Transfer Amendment to the federal budget. Many – if not most – hunters consider ourselves conservatives, and we thank Sen. Gardner for having the moral and political courage to break away from the lunatic mob and demonstrate common sense and true patriotism.

To paraphrase Woody Guthrie, these lands are your lands, these lands are my lands, always accessible to all of us, no matter our place of residence. In a sane world, SB 232 would die in committee when it comes up for a vote Thursday. But I’m not holding my breath. Meanwhile, for economic and cultural self-preservation, more Western Slope counties should follow the lead of San Miguel County and draft resolutions rejecting the treasonous concept of stealing America from Americans.

Longtime La Plata County resident David Petersen is a former Marine Corps officer, an award-winning writer and conservationist and founder of Colorado Backcountry Hunters and Anglers.



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