Posted on 09/08/2013 11:26:30 AM PDT by Hildy
BULLHEAD CITY — Almost half the land in Arizona — 48.1 percent to be exact — is owned by the federal government. Nevada leads the nation in federally owned land with an astounding 84.5 percent. And the feds own 45.3 percent of the land in California.
“The federal government controls more than 50 percent of all the land in the Western United States — a third of all land in the entire land mass of the United States,” said Ken Ivory, a Utah state senator and president of the American Lands Council.
Ivory has assumed a leading role in the fight to get federal lands transferred to the Western states. He said he believes it is an opportunity for the states to generate more income from oil and mineral rights, funding education, creating jobs and growing local and state economies and tax bases.
According to the Institute For Energy Research, “there’s $150 trillion in minerals locked up in the federally controlled lands,” Ivory said. “According to the Government Accountability Office, there’s more recoverable oil in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming than the rest of the world combined, locked up in federally controlled lands.”
Locally, a town hall meeting will be held this week to address the issue of transferring federal land to state control. Ivory will speak at the meeting, scheduled for 6 p.m. Friday in the Mohave County Board of Supervisors Auditorium, County Administration Building, 700 W. Beale St., Kingman.
With the transfer of land from federal to state control, Ivory said he sees economic opportunity not just for the West, but for the entire United States.
“We don’t have to be the world’s largest debtor nation. But prosperity requires production,” he said.
“North Dakota controls all of the access to its lands and it gets 100 percent of the mineral royalties. Utah and Arizona, we control hardly any of our land, and we only get 48 percent of the mineral royalties and under sequestration, they were cutting 5 percent of that back,” Ivory said.
The goal is to compel Congress by negotiation, legislation or, if necessary, litigation to honor the same statehood promise for Western states to transfer title to public lands that it kept with Hawaii and all states east of Colorado. The federal government owned 90 percent of the land in many states east of the Mississippi River, but now owns 5 percent, Ivory said.
Five Western states have already passed “transfer of public lands” legislation — Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.
The U.S. Constitution’s property clause “says Congress has the power to dispose of these Western territorial lands,” Ivory said. “So it’s clearly within Congress’s power to dispose of them. They made a policy change in 1976 and said, ‘We’re going to hang onto them forever.’ Well, they can unchange that policy at any time that’s killing Western communities.”
He brought up another argument in favor of states controlling their land.
“In Arizona, for example, do states really have to ride out federal mismanagement of the forests until the forests are all burned to the ground? Clearly, the notion of federalism, this governing partnership where the states are obligated to take care of health, safety (and) welfare, would imply the states have a duty to step in and thin those forests to protect the environment, protect the animals that are being burned, to protect the watershed that’s being destroyed.”
Ivory cautioned that transferring federal land to Western states is a long, complicated process.
“We’re a hundred years getting into this mess and so it’s not going to be something where you flip a switch and get out of it, unfortunately. But we have five states that have passed legislation and they’re now moving and studying the economics and the logistics of transfer and what a transition for that would look like.”
Mohave County has joined the American Lands Council because “We believe that the federal government has crossed the line between simply managing land to an oppressive and possible illegal policy of sealing off land for any and all public use,” said Mohave County District 2 Sup. Hildy Angius, R-Bullhead City. “We have seen this in their non-stop use of the Endangered Species Act, to the halting of uranium mining to the very unpopular reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf. Because we have so little land that is privately owned, our tax base is low and everything suffers, especially education. It appears that the Western states have finally banded together to tell the federal government enough is enough and the Mohave County Board of Supervisors supports that movement.
“We believe it is critical to the future of our county and our state to stop the federal government before it is too late.”
“It’s a huge educational effort,” Ivory said. “There’s nothing unconstitutional or impossible about it. The only thing that we lack is knowledge and courage.”
For more information, go to the American Lands Council website at: www.americanlandscouncil.org.
If You Go
What: Town hall meeting about federal land ownership
When: Friday, 6 p.m.
Where: County Administration Building, 700 W. Beale St., Kingman
That’s horrible the Feds own so much land in the West
Unfortunately, though, a lot of our Big Govt politicians in Washington, and in both parties, want to keep that land...especially the Anti-American Globalists.
Knowing the Feds...they probably will start letting the UN declare the West a “UN Heritage Site” and surrender it to the UN
“Forcing the federal government to release all lands back to the states...”
Consider that to release “all lands back to the states” implies that the states owned those lands before and that in many cases that is not true. Many states were formed from territories, said territories having been owned by the United States. When the such States were formed and admitted to the Union, the United States retained ownership of at least some land within the boundaries of the new States.
Agenda 21 - plain and simple. And, just as many republicans are falling for it as democrats.
Exactly
Anyone supporting ideas like Globalism, Internationalism, and Free Trade....push this Agenda 21 nonsense by the UN. We need de-centralization, not One World Govt
Being that you don’t know Ken Ivory, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I have never seen someone work so hard, against all odds to educate and organize. FYI: He’s doing it in Utah.
You have to look at the deeals ea that were made and what they say. Do you think we’d be doing this if we didn’t think there was a chance? My God, you people say you want this to happen, and then when people step up and actually do something, you deride them for that. Unbelievable.
The Restoration of State Lands Act is just one of the questions conservatives need to ask their congressional and presidential candidates early and often.
The presidential candidates must also be asked if they are willing to work with congress to reduce the powers of the “Imperial Presidency”. If they give some b.s. answer that they are somehow wise enough to use these powers, they lose, because these powers are unconstitutional. It does not matter what their personal intent is.
Congressional and presidential candidates also have to be clear that the constitution says “interstate” commerce, *not* “intrastate” commerce. And that they “general welfare” clause does *not* mean “government largess to individuals”.
All of these candidates need to have their feet held to the fire.
As one of those “politicians” you are referring to, I agree. It is now the first thing I ask any candidate, no matter what office He/she is running for. When I became County Supervisir, I had no idea how much of my job would be fighting the Federal Government, it is the fight of our lifetime and we’d better elect people who are up to the task. But we need public support as well. That is why I put together this Town Hall.
“Being that you don’t know Ken Ivory,...”
Yeah, you’re right. You might have noticed that I structured the observation as a generality. It will be nice if it turns out that it does not apply to Mr. Ivory.
I don’t know but I think getting all the county sheriffs on our side could do a lot to reducing federal authority in the western states. If the sheriffs refused to allow federal LEO’s to carry firearms in their counties that one move would knock a lot of their federal authority right off the shelf.
To say the undertaking is bold is an understatement.
In past I have proposed creating a Second Court of the United States, superior to the United States District Courts, but inferior to the SCOTUS.
Not a federal court, but a recreation of the US senate prior to the 17th Amendment. Two judges appointed by state legislatures on terms parallel to their senators. The court would do two things:
1) Determine if cases appealed from the US District Courts are indeed “federal cases” with constitutional issues heard by federal courts; or if jurisdiction of these cases should be returned to the states as not federal issues. In effect, a “jurisdictional” court.
This would neutralize the decisions of activist federal judges, by stripping these cases of federal involvement, despite Stare decisis (judicial precedent).
2) The other authority of the 2nd Court would be original jurisdiction of all lawsuits between the states and the federal government. Instead of such cases having to go through the state federal district judge, a three judge panel of the district court, the entire district court en banc, and then to become one of the 8,000 or so cases appealed to the SCOTUS each year, they would go directly to the 2nd Court.
The other states would decide these lawsuits, with advantage to states rights, not federal prerogatives, as things are now. Granted, decisions could still be appealed to the SCOTUS, but if 2/3rds or even 3/4ths of the states found against the federal government, the SCOTUS would have to think long and hard before overruling them.
Of course most men weren't free.
And there is also a high correlation of Federally owned land and wildfires. The government does a pi$$ poor job of managing the the land they have gobbled up. Each year they add millions of acres to national monuments, national forests, wildlife refuges, and other areas that are prohibited for general public use but reserved for the elite. Ever notice that they haven’t taken the northern half of PA or Western NY or other areas in the Eastern US for their follies? Bulldoze down the NJ coast and make it a marine swamp area for birds, mosquitoes and pond scum .... no that is only reserved for states in the South and West.
At least we’re trying. I can tell my Grandchildren I fought for freedom. Can you say the same thing?
We do have some great Sheriffs in Arizona, Utah and Idaho.
This is a war that needs to be fought. Oregon is about 80% fed land. Many people live in poverty, terribly high unemployment, surrounded by rich natural resources that have a sign “Look But Don’t Touch”.
All this land was supposed to revert to the states’ ownership, at least in OR and CA, once the state governments got themselves together.
In Arizona, for example, do states really have to ride out federal mismanagement of the forests until the forests are all burned to the ground?
That’s it in a nutshell.
They are out to close off all public lands to humans.
This is the goal.
Interesting bit of history. Adds depth to what we’re seeing now.
But they weren’t supposed to “own” it forever. They were supposed to cede it back to the states at some point.
Which they did not.
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