Transfer of Federal Lands to the States

LenSatic wrote:

highplainsdrifter wrote:
But if you choose state management and the states are forced to sell much of the land, then you will have MANY MORE restrictions because private property owners likely will not readily allow outdoor recreation. I will take and fight for door #1, even with its flaws.

No one has said who these "private" buyers would be. They are not going to sell Yosemite or the Grand Canyon. Ranchers won't buy the land because they don't want to pay a fixed property tax. If all of the BLM land around me became available for purchase, we'd probably buy about 40 or 50 acres. There would be no other buyers and there are thousands of acres around us. The rancher who grazes here just wants to pay the per head fee. But, he does not want the number of head reduced.

LS

If the states gained control and found themselves pressured to sell the land because they couldn't afford to manage it, I don't think vast acreages would be sold overnight. Instead, I think it would be a slow but steady drip. In 20 to 30 years it would amount to significant acreage.

There are many people clamoring to purchase federal land. These include real estate developers, municipalities surrounded by federal land, mineral companies, ranchers who want adjacent land, timber companies, etc.

We can speculate how much and how fast it would occur. But it would be a slippery downhill slope, and I don't want to start down that slope. The eastern states started down that slope a long time ago. Now many of them have very little public land left.

Let's treasure what is special about the Western United States!