Posted on 04/21/2014 6:42:35 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
But I will tell you that the BLM likes to use the desert tortoise as an indicator species because they are much easier to count than quail
Again, you people who haven’t actually farmed or ranched (or dealt with the BLM) in Nevada should load up on some facts before spouting off.
First, the reason why there is so much “federal” land in Nevada has NOTHING to do with “what people didn’t want.” It has to do with the Republican political leadership of the state stampeding to get the state admitted to the Union in 1864 and commit the silver and gold reserves found in the state to the US Treasury to prop up the US government, which was issuing a ferocious amount of debt in the days after the end of the central bank of the US.
Basically, the interests in Carson City said “anything that isn’t already deeded is federal.” There was no time for anyone to claim interest(s) in the land. The Republican political forces basically reckoned that the private lands from the Walker River north to the Truckee were about all that concerned them, and the silver mines in Virginia City were their primary concern, and in they rushed to the Union.
The lands claimed by the DOI in the 19th century were open to settlement, but the process was ended in 1976 by FLPMA.
One of the problems with the homesteading laws (which included the Stock Raising Act and Desert Land Entry) is that until powered irrigation became common, these acts, which had been predicated upon the amount of land a farmer could farm in places like Kansas, were far too little to be economically viable. If I want to run 300 head of cows in Nevada, I don’t need a section; I need 100’s of THOUSANDS of acres. One AUM is 50 to 70 acres in the high desert of Nevada, and probably closer to 200 acres in the lower desert (south of US Route 6) in Nevada.
What did the homesteading acts allow? 640 acres (one section) per family. OK, that’ll allow you to run a couple cows, year-round.
And that’s those states.
In Nevada, the BLM has a policy of “no net loss” of land. So when Dusty Harry cuts loose a section in Clark County for his buddies at Del Webb, the BLM pursues buying up ranches in the rest of the state.
Now, here’s where there’s another wrinkle: Reid put in some legislation to have the BLM use the proceeds of selling off public land at auction in the south of the state to buy up private water rights in the north of the state... which Harry and his evil spawn Rory would like to pipe to Clark County.
Watch the videos and then you decide if Stephen Pratt is worthy of your respect.
The Cliven Bundys are the rough-hewn timbers that made our country great. The Washington/Hollywood/Ivy League crowd is the slime that bubbles up from the secular sewer. The corrupt stench is the oder of a dying culture.
You are quite correct that the homesteading act was designed with eastern and midwestern lands in mind. That’s where almost all the congressmen who passed it were from and what they were familiar with.
The problem with the notion that the federal government retaining ownership of much land in Nevada after it became a state is that it just isn’t true. Most states had land still owned by the federal government after they became states. Above I’ve posted links to documentation of public land sales in the 20th century in MO and FL.
Here’s some from a single county in MS. Feds still selling off public land more than a century after statehood in 1817.
Comparing the land disposal in eastern and midwestern states to the western states isn’t fruitful.
Those state records you’re pointing me at show disposals of piddly little parcels - “quarters of quarters” or 40 acres.
That, in those states that could grow tobacco was enough to live on.
In the western states which came into the union in the latter half of the 19th century, the policy out of DC became one against land disposal, and then only in split estates. It is far easier to get a mining claim in Nevada than to gain control of the surface rights. In those other states you mention, when you gained land, you gained it all. They usually didn’t have split estates.
In no other state does the US Government control such a large proportion of the overall land mass in the state as Nevada. Other western states were far smarter than Nevada was, because they reserved proportions of the state for state lands. Nevada didn’t do even than. For example, here in Wyoming, we have “state sections” where graziers pay the state of Wyoming for the grazing rights. This is used to fund schools in the surrounding county.
Then there’s a little tidbit that most people who have never lived, farmed/ranched/mined in Nevada don’t know: Several of the BLM offices in Nevada are “penalty duty” for DOI employees the DOI would like to make quit. When you’re dealing with the BLM on land disposal issues in Nevada, you have pure, simple stupidity standing in your way as well as the other factors.
All of conflict about Bundy is about FLPMA and FLPMA ended homesteading.
But there is still a lot of landswapping going on and if you need some BLM land, or Forest Service land, you go out and buy some private land that the land agency deems to be desirable and they will gladly swap with you. In my neck of the woods, for the last 25 years, Weyerhauser has been swapping with Forest Service, FWS, and state agencies in which Weyerhauser is trading away acres for board feet.
The money available to the land agencies to buy land is mostly from the Land and Water Conservation Fund(1965). And that act requires that 60% of the money appropriated be used to buy more land. For each forest and each BLM unit there is a lot competition for this money. Sometimes, Congress will make a special appropriation as they did in 2000(1 million) to buy the Baca #1 ranch in New Mexico to create the Valles Caldera, on which they lease grazing. They charge a tourist $10 per day to hike and a rancher 55 cents per day to graze one cow-calf unit.
I agree. It is a good article.
A lot of the landswapping is to consolidate tracts. Much of the West is checker-boarded due to old railroad and other land deals. Consolidating tracts is generally in everybody’s interest.
There are urban counties and many rural counties, who are collectively powerful.
This whole subject of the feds imposing on the western rural counties is not accurate.
CARA, and CARA 2000 included Payment in Lieu of Taxes(PLT). The premise behind PLT was that as the federal land agencies reduced economic activity on these federal lands, that reduction in economic activity would reduce the tax base and income to county govts and school districts in these rural counties thru-out the west, creating hardship.
So CARA didn't pass but the CARA compromise did and PLT was part of the Compromise. PLT took the form of the Counties Payment Bill and was supposed to last 7 years. You may recall that many freepers griped and complained about this govt giveaway.
So anyway, as it turned out, The GOP was trying to open Area 181 in the Gulf to drilling in 2006, but they needed some dem votes, so they told these western states dems that if the dems would vote for this offshore drilling, the GOP would vote to extend the Counties Payment Bill when it expired the following year.
Nothing ever dies in Congress, it just lives on.
So, the premise that these rural counties in the west are getting hurt by reducing logging or grazing, is not accurate, they are being compensated.
The purpose of the Oathkeepers and militia arriving at Bundy Ranch was to prevent another Waco or Ruby Ridge, not to start an armed revolution, and they managed by grace of God to pull that off and come to a peaceful resolution.
Ficklin seems quite put out that a hundred or more weren't massacred under that bridge. Talk about blood lust. And that's just when he's not sneering down his nose at the "uneducated peasants" here at Free Republic.
The Bundy Ranch situation has nothing to do with preserving a relic from our distant past, and keeping the ranching lifestyle as some sort of Colonial Williamsburg living museum. This is about a corrupt criminal enterprise deciding that it wants what is yours and is going to do whatever it has to do to take it, come hell or high water.
If some corrupt senator decides that they want Hanson's vineyards, they're going to find a way to take them. If they can't buy him out, they'll tax him into bankruptcy, rig the court system, plant evidence (marijuana), declare his land a fragile ecosystem, bring in SWAT teams and burn him out... whatever they have to do, they will do it if it serves their ends. And as long as we keep putting up with it, it is going to keep happening.
Eventually, every one of us who believes in the Constitution is going to be considered an ancient relic who is in the way of "progress."
This^
But I must say that you look really good waving the flag.
LOL. What ever makes you feel better, sweetie.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.