Posted on 04/14/2014 1:54:43 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
ST. GEORGE – Gov. Brian Sandoval signed Assembly Bill 227 into Nevada law Tuesday, approving the creation of the Nevada Land Management Task Force. The signing of AB 227 makes Nevada the fifth state to look into the movement initiated by Utah lawmakers that urges the federal government to transfer management of public lands over to state control.
In a press release issued by the American Lands Council, Nevada Assemblyman John Ellison, the primary sponsor of AB 227, said, “Gov. Sandoval and our state legislature have taken the first step in fulfilling our responsibility to our children and for the future of our state in making congress honor the same promise to Nevada that it made and kept with Hawaii and all other states east of Colorado.”
The “promise” that Ellison refers to is what is referred to as a state’s “enabling act,” which is basically a statehood contract. When a state joins the country, part of its lands are held under federal jurisdiction – which land transfer proponents argue was only meant to be a temporary arrangement. While lands management was transferred to many states that lie east of Colorado, in the west this did not come about.
On March 23, 2012, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed into law House Bill 148, known as The Transfer of Public Lands Act. HB 148 was spearheaded by Rep. Ken Ivory and demands the federal government transfer control of the public lands to the state by the end of 2014.
Like the Utah bill, Nevada’s AB 227 does not include national parks and other lands that have a similarly protected status in the proposed transfer. Public lands currently cover an estimated 70 percent of Utah, and over 81 percent of Nevada.
(Excerpt) Read more at stgeorgeutah.com ...
He’s arguing its state and county land. He’s right.
Really. Had that with a poster from Mass.
Being to the right of Ted Kennedy doesn’t make you a conservative.
Ranchers have always grazed on open range, i.e., land that was not owned by anyone.
Nevada becomes a State, but inside it’s “borders” Fedzilla keeps title to most of the land.
It’s held until elite financiers need “their” CongressCriminal(tm) to give them a sweetheart land deal.
Until that time, it’s held by Fedzilla and called a “park” or something.
If you watch the move “Pale Rider”, you’ll get the gist of the story.
See, those ranchers...
Lahood: they’re standin’ in the way of progress.
Clint: who’s progress ? Theirs, or yours ?
The less illegitimate alternative would be to let each State’s OWN corrupt legislature administer land swindles at the State level.
In a State like Nevada, which would want to keep it’s hand in the range-grazed beef industry, they’d probably keep some arrangement going to let the rancher graze his cattle, and let their other land uses dovetail in with the rancher.
Once you get such a deranged (pun intended?) crook as Harry Reid in the US Senate, it becomes a certainty that he’ll use his office to rape the land and pillage the people, who will find it much harder to schmooze him at the Federal level than to schmooze local State legislators.
See also:
Republican National Committee Counsel’s Office
RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF WESTERN STATES TAKING BACK PUBLIC LANDS
Document Transcript
WHEREAS, The federal government promised all newly created states – in their statehood enabling contracts – that it would transfer title to the public lands;
WHEREAS, This promise to transfer title to the public lands is the same for all states east and west of Colorado;
WHEREAS, The federal government honored this promise with Hawaii and all states east of Colorado and today controls on average less than 5% of the lands in those states;
WHEREAS, The federal government has failed to honor this same promise with MT, WY, CO, NM, AZ, UT, ID, NV, WA, OR, CA and AK and today still controls more than 50% of all lands in these states (more than 80% of the state of Nevada);
WHEREAS, The Supreme Court of the United States declared these enabling act contracts to be “solemn compacts” with enforceable rights and obligations on both sides;
WHEREAS, In 1976 the United States Congress ended its nearly two hundred year public policy of beneficially transferring ownership of public lands by passing the Federal Land Policy Management Act (FLPMA);
WHEREAS, Public lands previously held in trust for the individual states were managed for their resource value prior to the passage of FLPMA;
WHEREAS, After the passage of FLPMA our public lands are instead being managed perpetually for their conservation value;
WHEREAS, Local state and national economies are all being adversely impacted by the loss of use of the natural resources thus being managed;
WHEREAS, Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT), Secure Rural Schools (SRS), and other public offsets are financially inadequate, have been unreliably funded and do not adequately compensate the States for the breach of their Enabling Acts; Paid for by the Republican National Committee 310 First Street, SE • Washington, DC 20003 • (202) 863-8638 • Fax (202) 863.8654 www.gop.com
WHEREAS, The U.S. Supreme Court case Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs speaks to the proposition that Congress cannot by subsequent, unilateral action alter or diminish the rights conferred upon a state in consequence of its admission to the Union;
WHEREAS, Under the guise of “sequestration” to cut federal expenses, the federal government is cutting western states’ revenues in the form of PILT, SRS and FML (Federal Mineral Lease) cutbacks;
WHEREAS, States east of Colorado pay billions each year to subsidize western states to not use their lands and resources to educate their own children and care for their own communities;
WHEREAS, Western states already manage millions of acres of state lands generating more revenue with less expense and less environmental damage in general than federally managed public lands;
WHEREAS, The National Association of Forest Service Retirees recently issued a paper describing the unsustainability of current federal forest management practices;
WHEREAS, The resulting increase in catastrophic wildfires is needlessly killing millions of animals and destroying habitat and watershed for decades;
WHEREAS, Western states are incurring inordinate expenses to suppress forest fires related to failed federal forest policies;
WHEREAS, The federal government discourages capital investment and job creation by taking 10 times longer to approve energy development permits than states where the federal government honored the promise to transfer title to the public lands;
WHEREAS, The Institute for Energy Research discovered in 2013 that there is more than $150 trillion in mineral value locked up in federally controlled lands;
WHEREAS, Opening 8% of the coastal plain of ANWR in Alaska would provide billions of dollars to the Federal treasury, create more than 500,000 jobs nationwide and add between 9-16 billion barrels of oil to our nation’s supply;
WHEREAS, In 2012 the United States Government Accountability Office testified to Congress that there is more recoverable oil in UT, CO, and WY than the rest of the world combined locked up in federally controlled lands; and
WHEREAS, Legal analyses by the Sutherland Institute and The Federalist Society conclude that the intent of the parties, the text, and the context of the statehood enabling acts, obligate the federal government to dispose of public lands; now therefore be it
RESOLVED, That the Republican National Committee calls upon the federal government to honor to all willing western states the same statehood promise to transfer title to the public lands that it honored with all states east of Colorado; and
RESOLVED, That the Republican National Committee calls upon all national and state leaders and representatives to exert their utmost power and influence to urge the imminent transfer of public lands to all willing western states for the benefit of these western states and for the nation as a whole.
*As adopted by the Republican National Committee on January 24, 2014.
So, “Around 1990 or so they told him that he could no longer graze more than 150 of his 600 or so head of cattle there.”
If Bundy had agreed, he’d lose water rights...to the rest of his land(?)
Nevada votes in shutting grazing rights down permanently.
How Wouldn’t this force people out of business? For what purpose? A tortoise that feeds on cow manure?
Nope. Not buying it. BLM can put the parcel together and lease rights for minerals/energy, with appropriate kickbacks to pols like Reid.
Someone wants the land, probably including Bundy’s.
This transfer of land is way overdue.
When Bundy's son was tased, Sandoval should have said something like "That's It! All federal officers are to vacate the area with 24 hours. After that time, I order the County Sheriff to arrest any who remain." The guy would have leapt in national prominence - for and agin, which would have been a win-win for him, whatever his ambitions are.
“Where in the constitution does the Feds have the right to own 40% of CA, 90% of Nevada, in the form of BLM, Nation Parks, National Reserves, Military bases. the land should be owned, managed, governed by the state.”
Article III, Section 3, second clause says: “The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.”
I’m not sure how the second half plays, but the first half certainly shows that the United States (not the Federal Government) retains “Territory or other Property belonging to the United States”.
At the time that was mostly the Northwest Territory, but later on, other territory came to belong to the United States through the Louisiana Purchase, the purchase of territory from Mexico after the Mexican-American War, and the Alaska purchase.
When States were created from all that territory, Congress just didn’t dispose of all the land to the newly created States.
Now here’s a question: What Constitutional authority authorizes the purchases of the Louisiana Territory, the Southwest land from Mexico, and Alaska?
From what I’ve seen, the federal government owns just about everything outside of urban boundaries in Utah and Nevada, with the exception of what they have transferred to state government in Utah. The only exception would be state parks and the very occasional tract of private land.
The only reason Nevada is ahead of Utah on the map above is that Utah has a larger urban sprawl around SLC compared to LAS. Otherwise it’s pretty much the same deal. And this applies to most of the Great Basin region, most of the land east of the Cascades in WA and OR, most of ID, the southwest quadrant of WY, the western parts of CO and northern AZ, all owned largely by the federales.
They should try taking over most of NY and MI and see how it plays in blue states.
“Bundy, by virtue of his non-payment of fees and decades of disobedience of court orders, is not an a good poster-boy for this cause.”
You need to go read a post by “pony girl.” The non-payment of “grazing fees” is a virtually non-issue here in the larger context of what the BLM is trying to accomplish by force.
Where the hell is taxcontrol at? He would explain to you that since the government OWNs everything, they can not do that.
The fact the BLM tried to impair the obligation of this contract by stepping in the middle and demanding payment for the land based on a contract it was NOT a party to, is, itself, Unconstitutional under Article 1, Section 10, Clause 1: .......or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts
Thank you. I've not seen anything about how the grazing rights have been treated historically.
I know. Almost everything I’ve seen is about how ‘he’s a freeloader and should pay like everybody else’. They truly don’t realize he ISN’T like ‘everybody else’ because of the history behind his landholding.
This is extremely important for the western States and the Governor of Nevada needs to put this into the context of the Bundy ranch issue.
Its not the 1 million dollars that this Nevadian owes to Washington its the hundreds of billions of dollars Nevadian have lost over the last century of Washington hording 85% of their God given land, water, and natural resources.
Compared to what Nevadian have lost Bundy’s ranching rights stretching back a hundreds years is but a tiny drop in the Nevada desert.
Nevada has every right to stand up to Washington and assert her equal standing with states like New York who suffer only 1% of their land subject to federal meddling, neglect and abuse.
in my heart I believe your right. The Land belonged to Nevada not Washington.
The feds haven’t given up control because thats what they do, seek control.
Good refrence Jim Roberson, This is truely a matter of equality.
The people of Nevada and most western states Have been and indeed are being cheated out of uncounted trillions of dollars in lost revenue and opportunity to grow.
This is not only a violation of the Statehood compact it is a fundamental violation of their equal standing with all eastern states. Who have not been made to suffer under such improvising restrictions.
If eastern don’t think states are capable of retaining park land they should be pointed to the example of New York whom to this day retains the largest park in the USA.
That much is obvious, Nevada and all western states need to continue to look for ways to pressure them and raise the matter.
This is really a matter of incalculable economic concern, particularly for Nevada with 80%+ of its territory and potential under such Federal suppression.
Now THIS is what I’m talking about! They’re incredibly correct. Transferring these lands back to state control will boost the economies of those states significantly, as the mining and grazing rights will be in the hands of the local economies. This is, in my mind, the argument we should be supporting. It ain’t my state, but I’ll be writing the Nevada legislature in support of this.
This is the appropriate way to highlight this important issue. Bundy, by virtue of his non-payment of fees and decades of disobedience of court orders, is not an a good poster-boy for this cause.Agreed completely. I'm glad to see Jim support this type of state legislation.
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