Posted on 05/05/2014 8:58:27 AM PDT by jazusamo
DENVER — Behind the hoopla surrounding Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s standoff with the Bureau of Land Management is a growing resentment over the federal government’s status as the largest landowner in the West.
“This is so much bigger than one rancher in Nevada,” Utah state Rep. Ken Ivory, who heads the American Lands Council, said in an April 23 online debate sponsored by The Salt Lake Tribune.
How much land does the federal government own? A 2012 Congressional Research Survey said the federal government owns about 640 million acres, or 28 percent of the nation’s land mass. Roughly 90 percent of that property is in the West.
Put another way, one out of every two acres in the West is federally owned. In Nevada, the figure is 81.1 percent; in Alaska, 61.8 percent; in Utah, 66.5 percent; in Oregon, 53 percent. In Connecticut and Iowa, the federal government owns 0.3 percent of the land.
“The federal estate is larger than France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom combined,” said Robert Gordon, a senior adviser for the Heritage Foundation. “It is too big and was never intended to be preserved as one big park, but the left is strangling use of it and with it, rural America.”
Although Nevada has received most of the national attention since Mr. Bundy’s clash last month with BLM agents, the heaviest push to wrest control of federal lands is coming from Utah. In 2012, Gov. Gary Richard Herbert, a Republican, signed a bill demanding that the federal government relinquish control of more than 20 million acres of federal land within Utah’s borders by 2015.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Ping!
Frankly, I think the Federal Government has no rights whatsoever to land unless it has purchased it from the original owners. Further, to take over land once owned by states and to work under the guise of ‘managing’ it and then imposing dictatorial regulation of it is theft in my opinion. The more you give this government, the more they take from you.
BUMP!
The author is a little bit late. Any thinking person knew this was not about Bundy from day one….that it was always about the BLM, their private army, and just WTF is the Fed Gov doing owning 28% of the nation anyway?
Amen...The 640 million acres owned by the feds equals 1 million square miles, that’s not only ridiculous but criminal.
If the States can prevail in taking this land from the Federal Government, the States would then be empowered to lease the land and grant Licenses to “DRILL”. The Obama Admin. will fight this until the last EPA or Energy Department Employee Employee is still standing.
You are so right. Unfortunately so many non-thinking people think this is about a rich racist rancher that wants to graze his cattle at the expense of taxpayers and tortoises.
yeah, including Sean Hannity…...
I wouldn’t characterize people as non-thinking because they don’t understand the basic mechanism. It has been this way for what, at least a century, more or less?
Most people who don’t have a stake in it (even if they DO have a stake, just not realizing that the issue is a Federal vs State issue that has many tentacles into far reaching areas) and it has been this way their whole lives for many of them.
Problem is that many people don’t see how this could possibly impact them so they don’t care, and the media isn’t going to educate them in any way.
And I call all of that non-thinking - maybe because all of it was patently obvious to me the first two minutes I spent on the story.
I think all of them should be in prison myself.
I personally think the constitution prohibits the federal government from owning land beyond what it needs for public use, meaning military bases, national monuments, etc. However, that could be broadly interpreted to mean just about anything, like a base that covers an entire state.
I certainly don’t see anything in the US Constitution that permits the federal government to regulate privately held land. Say you inherit property with a lake that’s been held in your family for decades, and the federal government now says you can’t build on it or alter the lake in any way. Where does it get the authority to do that? Nevertheless, that’s exactly what it’s doing.
First place to look is the US Constitution to see what it says with respect to Land the federal authority government can own. It does in two parts - one is for acquiring land and territories in Art 4, section 3 clause 2. The other is for Federal ownership of land within a State. That’s found in Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 17. To Wit:
“To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;”
Nevada is not a Territory, its a State. As such its Sovereign and owns all land within its borders. Accordingly, the only authority the Federal Government has to own land inside a State is “for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;” with “consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be,”.
It’s pretty black and white.
They are tyrants flaunting the laws and Constitution of this country. They do this because establishment RINO Republicans like Graham, McCain, Boehner, Cantor, and McConnell eagerly let them.
‘Republicans’ may keep the House and win the Senate; it will not be because of a vote from me. I am only going to vote for a real conservative, or I’ll not vote at all.
I'm gonna catch that horse if I can.
The US Government paid Mexico (owners prior to US ownership) $15 Million back in 1848 for the lands stated in the treaty of Guadalupe Hildago. Nevada was not a state at that time as it did not become a state until 1864. When Nevada became a state, their Constitution ceded any unallocated lands to the US Government.
As far as I’m concerned the land was still effectively stolen.
That's why they choose to remain non-thinking. We see this in regards to many topics. The information is available to anyone who wants to know. It is not up to the media to force an education on unwilling people. These are the people who refuse to learn the readily available truth about any and all topics that aren't directly about them. They gleefully support every atrocity on the agenda, until it becomes personal for them. I'm sure you know the type.
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