Asked about federal land, Trump said he’s not in favor of giving it back to the states.
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32 Comments on Put this is in Trump’s negative column
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I doubt if Trump realizes how much land the Feds control out here left of the Mississippi.
I’m not sure that I would consider that entirely negative. He’s got a point. Anyway, I think each individual State’s case should be addressed as a separate issue, not lumped all together in a single yes/no solution.
I am willing to listen to what he proposes. If he reigns in some of the bloated beauracracy and enforces accountability in it, I am will wait and see. I agree with his comment about states using the land as a piggy bank. I shudder to think what Ca or Wa or Or would do with theirs.
i know. put the lesbian federal park employee, who gleefully ripped off the ww2 vets, in charge.
This is the kind of stuff that worries me about him. At the same time we have so much to fix not sure where this issue falls on the must do list.
It’s not as cut and dried as you would think. East of the Mississippi, it was fairly easy for the Feds to divest of the land and they did but once you got into the mountainous west, this land is fairly unattractive for farming or grazing.
The Feds have sold quite a bit of the land over the years but the fact is the states, like NV, CO, UT that have substantial portions under federal control, want it that way. They are spared huge administrative costs. I read that Utah would have to spend almost $300 million yearly to take care of the land that the Feds now administer.
When I lived in CO, the very best areas to hunt, camp, mountain bike and fish were US Forest or BLM. I paid $46 for an in state deer tag. These huge areas are open to everyone. I could leave my home in Golden and honest to goodness be in the middle of no where in landscapes that would leave you speechless, in 45 minutes. The last deer I got was 35 minutes from home.
I live in Texas now and there is hardly any BLM or US Forest land. It’s ridiculous how expensive it is to hunt here because most of the time, at least here in w Texas, you have to do it on privately owned land.
Trump is right when he says there’s no telling what the individual states would do. Yes, they’ve been very heavy handed dealing with ranchers and that shit needs to stop. But I like these lands kept wild and the feds will do that. To excess at times, yes. They have some pretty ridiculous regulations for logging and mining and there should be more of that. Some of our most horrible forest fires are because they won’t allow logging which regenerates the forest and protects it from these massive fires.
But until you’ve been camping out, fishing for breakfast for a week in the Snake River Wilderness Area and seen the beauty of this land, you know you’d never want it ruined.
Let’s see now ‘1’ in the negative column and ’50’ in the positive column. Yep they almost balance out!
I don’t see how, “I would do the same thing that all other presidential candidates would do” is a negative. I haven’t heard any of the other candidates offering anything different. Nor would I expect them to. This is a fringe issue.
Wall trumps land status quo
Until he changes his mind!
“I was against Big Government before I was for it!”
I read about this a yesterday and wondered what the other candidates would answer to this question. There seem to be a lot of questions about fairly narrow interpretation of current law and hypotheticals about the application of the constitution being asked of Trump. No-so-subtle vetting of his constitutional chops? I don’t know. This particular story feeds the Kelo stories about him.
I like the above comment about what socialist states like WA would do with their public lands. We know how corrupt self-described environmentalists can be whenever there is an opportunity to skim some money from the scheme.
It’s a thorny issue. On the one hand I don’t like that the feds own so much of our states’ lands, but on the other I like that we have enormous swaths of untouchable domain that is set aside for future generations to enjoy equally, and to allow for the continuation of essential habitat for wildlife. I have an enormous problem with the feds leasing access and mining rights to foreign interests. I’m not sure to what extent this is happening, but there are mining and oil forums that discuss foreign leases of shale oil/gas lands and at least some of them have got to be under federal control I’m speculating.
So the question, whether to Trump or anyone else, is somewhat misleading because both federal and state laws concerning land use would be an area of legal practice unto itself. Then you have the crony interests of the BLM, The Forest Service, the Dept of Interior, and a host of sub-Department agencies that are the holders of public lands in trust. One can’t help suspecting much of this bureaucracy was established like a pea under the walnut shuffle to keep the public in the dark about their public lands.
I think it was only in the last thirty or so years that it takes only a presidential approval to declare a national monument with no action from congress. Once declared, nothing can be done to or on the land — including mineral mining. Nothing. Environmentalists have been exploiting or trying to exploit the use of national monument status to take control of more public lands, making them unusable to anyone for any activity. I know the arguments in favor of that, but it doesn’t make sense to me.
(This is way too long. Sorry for the tome.)
In the case of Washington State, it would be a disaster to hand federal lands over to Seattle to administer. And yes, Seattle does control Olympia lock, stock and barrel.
Should the federal government divest ALL that land to the states?
That was the way the question was posed – every acre divested.
How else could he answer it?
How would the divestment take place? The federal government acquired that land and managed it using our tax dollars. If the fed gov gives it to the states it would make me feel ripped off, being a taxpayer from the east. Should the states buy it? Most couldn’t afford it. Should it be made available for anyone to purchase, like the chinese?
Trump is right. Much of the funding comes from Pittman-Robertson Act excize taxes on sporting equipment. I am one of those sportmen who paid that tax on every gun, bullet, boat, rod, reel and lure I purchased. I have hunted on BLM land in Wyoming. It was beautiful, unspoiled land.
There are probably individual cases where it would make sense to divest. But not all.
Things are already very astray. And I like my National Forest National, instead of controlled by Jerry Brown.
While I agree there are beautiful spaces that need protection. Does the BLM need to own 36% of Colorado? 84% of Utah? An unelected bureaucracy (BLM) is the owner of the 8th largest country in the world and they do not answer to anybody as far as I can tell.
I personally don’t think the states should own the land either. I think it should be privately owned. The BLM can start a homestead patent process again. Include the mineral estate and get this land into some type of productive status and on the tax rolls. What Utah “gains” in the government management of these lands I suspect the county and schools lose in the PILT (payment in lieu of taxes) department.
I know the county I reside, in the state of South Dakota has never received more than 40% of the full and true tax valuation from the US in PILT payments. The PILT payments are 3-5 years in the rears and the county and school district have no idea on a year to year basis when the tax payments are going to be received. So the school district has no idea what their revenue is going to be on a year to year basis. If you get off the eastern slope in Colorado and into the small counties in the mountains I suspect the schools face the same challenges.
Colorado resident big game licenses are a great deal. But the non-resident contributes 5/6 of the total elk tag revenue $38M, vs resident $7.6M (2012-13). So if it is truly all of our land why can’t we all hunt on it at the same price? The local businesses would still gain the same or more business so the overall tax revenue would most likely increase if there was parity in licensing on federal land.
In South Dakota I know we do the same thing with pheasant licenses but virtually zero of the land hunted is federal land. Vast majority is private and under the taxing authority of the state.
Finally, the BLM manages land horribly, case in point the feral horse problem. As I say, don’t get rid of it all, but how about we start with a 50% reduction is federal land holdings in the west, I think 250 million acres reduced by ½ would be plenty of land for the BLM to screw up.
There is a lot of hankypanky going on with federally owned lands that I am disturbed about and what states would do with land returned to them IS an unknown and needs to be seriously considered and decided wisely and fairly. I am glad Trump is thinking about that. We have Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates BUYING thousands of acres in California and Arizona,using up our water to grow alfalfa for their livestock in their countries. Then there is that McCain/Flake land deal in Arizona, which was stealthily slipped in to the NDAA bill at the last minute before it was passed. Land important to the Apache Indians was sold to a foreign copper mining company owned by Australia and Britain, and involving China and Iran on down the line. Then we have the BLM trouncing all over ranchers’ constitutional rights on a very regular basis.These are just a few examples of yet another broken system within our country. This IS NOT a question one could answer within a short interview. It overwhelms the mind to consider all the out of control, anti-constitutional and malfunctioning tentacles of this government. I believe Trump and his team, along with input from “we the people” and his willingness to HEAR us, has more potential to be able to figure this mess out than anyone else.
The feds control about half the beaches here in NC. When the government shut down, they put up barricades to keep people off the beach and had Rangers (paid overtime) to make sure nobody got on the beach because there were no Rangers on regular duty to patrol the beach. Yeah, that’s how the Feds work.
Remember all the parks Obama closed and blamed Ted Cruz? Hell, he even had helicopters hovering in front of Mount Rushmore with huge tarps so nobody could see it! (still one of my fav BFH agitprop evah! 😉 )
I’ve lost count of how many strikes Trump has, but for me he struck out long ago!
I did a little search on this and found that Cruz had sponsored legislation to auction off this land rather than give it to the states.
I’d be fine with that if a special clause was inserted specifying that only US citizens can own that land in perpetuity. In fact I’d like to see an amendment to the Constitution stipulating that ONLY US citizens can own land in the US.
It’s very clear to me that the feral government has zero Constitutional right to own any land that isn’t dedicated to providing for the common defense. And ALL the other land needs to be stripped from them.
Yes, the national parks are great, ditto for public hunting areas etc. BUT the Constitution isn’t a buffet, take it all or take it not at all. And the precedence set by allowing “the crown” to own big parts of the country is too real to ignore.
I’ll add that I read years ago that auctioning off all the land and assets of the government not consistent with it’s Constitutionally limited role was proposed by the Libertarian party as a way to pay off the social security obligation, paying off the existing “entitlement” while re-funding younger workers’ money and abolishing this socialist Ponzi scheme.
I wonder if the math would still work to do that?
That’s what really scares me about him. It looks more and more like there is an awful lot about America, the Constitution and the concept of limited govt. that Trump doesn’t appear to realize or even care to. He’ll make great deals and make America great again seems to be the entirety of his “plan”. One can only hope that if he wins, he hires the best people and actually listens to them.
Trump – like most others – doesn’t understand.
“Federal” land is MINE! YOURS! OURS!
It does NOT belong to some filthy fucking bureaucrats appointed by some corrupt politicians!
So those of you that agree with Trump on this think that the States are dumb asses and only the great Federal behemoth can run things like they should be run. Doesn’t sound very grassroots conservative to me. But I guess when you’re wearing rose colored glasses…
Here’s a case before the SC now:
http://www.newsminer.com/news/alaska_news/a-moose-hunter-and-his-hovercraft-tell-the-supreme-court/article_bbcd2bcc-be7e-11e5-ac2e-27ce750c4479.html
The money quote;
” the service says they are noisy and allow park visitors to go into areas where they don’t necessarily need to be – applied in the Alaskan preserve.”
There are no two agencies I have more contempt for than the BLM (Bureau of Lawless Men) and the Pork Service and that includes the IRS and the EPA.
A far better start would be cut the bureaucrats by 50%. After we get rid of them we can decide what to do with the land.
That’s okay, I’ll just keep my Trump voting hand in my pocket and burn all the federal lands to the ground. There, fixed that. Now I’m going to go over to Conservative Treehouse and say the same thing. Damn, it was fun while it lasted.
The post above is mine. Hit submit to soon.
So the pork rangers get to decide where it’s necessary for me to be and if it’s not necessary for me to be there, I should just stay out.
Sounds like a free country to me alright.
This is what the BLM is doing out west….
http://www.libertynewsnow.com/burned-alive-government-burns-land-homes-and-cattle/article3319
There are a lot of valuable minerals to be sold off and political profits to be made. Remember Hillary and uranium to Russia….?
….Lady in Red
A little rant about those valuable minerals. Within 10 miles of me is a large gold mine. This particular mine is owned by a Canadian company.
How many of the 400+ employees at the mine are Canadian? As far as I know none and I know quite a few of the workers. And who owns the company. No idea but I would bet there are many stockholders that are US citizens. There are reasons mining companies are not headquartered in US with tax laws being a major one.
I’m torn on this issue. I understand and appreciate what some say about turning federal lands back to the states, but as a resident of Nevada who is heavily involved in local government, it scares the hell out of me thinking what the state would do if this were to happen. There have been so many unfunded mandates forced down on the counties by the governor and the state legislature, there is no doubt in my mind that they would assess each county a management fee based on the amount of public land it contains. In my county, 98% is owned, controlled, or managed by the Feds. We’re broke now because of the actions taken by a governor who calls himself a Republican.
Barrier eclipses terrain existing conditions?