Section 203 of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, 43 U.S.C. 1713(a), allows a tract of the public lands that is managed by the Bureau of Land Management (except land within the National Wilderness Preservation System, National Wild and Scenic Rivers Systems, and National System of Trails) to be sold by the Secretary of Interior.
n fact, a recent court case just upheld the unrestricted right of the U.S. Government to sell public land. On November 2, 2018, a federal judge in California struck down a California law SB 50. The law was actually quite mild, giving the California State Lands Commission the first shot at buying any land that the U.S. Government wants to sell. This is actually a reasonable position, that perhaps should be built-in as a policy nationwide. Why not let the State or County have a right of first refusal, to make as many people as happy as possible about the sale?
But the Trump Administration filed a lawsuit. Judge William Shubb ruled that the power of the federal government to sell the land it owns to anyone it wants is so clear and powerful, that California cannot restrict who the land can be sold to. In other words, the land can clearly be sold.
Critics will focus, as always, on the wrong examples. This is why each State — not the President — must select and nominate candidate land after debate within each State. Depending on the politics of their leadership, some States will not participate at all. Not a problem. There are plenty of other options. Some States will be eager. Talk to those States, not the trouble-makers. (In fact, that was California’s rationale for its law: They wanted to make sure that sensitive public lands were not being sold to private buyers.)
Camp Pendelton in California is worth BILLIONS and BILLIONS
I hope he sells your blog to the Chinese and they use it to wrap up some roasted dog meat.
The answer is damned simple !
Use all seized drug monies , terrorism and human trafficking monies , which are sitting in U.S. Gov warehouses , on legal appeals and various holds and stays , to FUND THE WALL !
THIS is the way to make Mexico pay for the wall , as promised .
The money is there . More than enough . Annul all appeals and holds and use that money . It’s U.S. cash $$$$
It could be commanded , by Executive Order , TOMORROW .
Just do it .
Sell it all and pay off our national debt.
mainland chinese and indians have the most cash, sell our land to them.
:-(
There is no doubt about the right of the fed/gov to sell land.
The really important issue is how does the Executive get to decide what the resulting revenues. It doesn’t.
Great idea, private stewardship is better than public and they will empty the trash in parks even if the government is shutdown.
It is managed under a trust. ALL of it. So that trust should be turned over to the local communities.
Simple fact is this. The mines in the state of NV produce some 5 million ounces of gold a year. Safe to say a lot of that comes from Federal land. Simply hire a mining company to go and mine gold/silver for the federal government. Put it into Ft Knox and go back to the gold and silver standard.
could someone post this article, i am having problems
https://spectator.org/the-most-successful-coverup/
I like this idea, along with using the monies and assets taken from the drug lords.
But I mostly like THIS IDEA because the U.S. Government is not supposed to own this much natural lands within the United States! That is State property, which means it should be state RESIDENTS property, unless the State has a specific need (reservoirs, State parks, State agency offices, etc.)! The fact that the U.S. Government still owns a great portion of the Southwest is simply BOVINE EXCREMENT!!
Just to clarify, each state would write a check the the government to transfer “ownership” of land from fed to state, correct?
What budget account line item does the credit go to at the federal level? Going through the budget process is one step. Appropriations of the spending is another, technically speaking.
That said, the omnibus budget/spending fiasco of the past decade is completely out of line with the way budgeting and spending is supposed to be legislated and managed. So I don’t know if there are any rules anymore. Trump should just commission the program and charge it to a military budget. Have the Corps of Engineers manage it. How could they stop that? Oh, I know, lawsuits!
Libs are currently suing, and have been suing, to stop the fed from enforcing ACTUAL laws. Go figure.
SELL ANWAR
A whole new meaning to Trump Towers.
I’ll take 5000 acres of Grand Teton for 1000 Alex
the fed govt should own no more than 1 or 2 percent of America, not 28% and not the 30 to 70 percent it owns in some states
until we can transfer the national parks to the states where they belong,
the fed holdings should include little more than necessary military bases and interstate highways
it hurts the economy and deprives individual liberty for the govt to own so much of the land, just like in a Communist country
please, PDJT .. sell off some of the excess “federal” land!
...sell federal land to the State or County government at a discount, like $5,000 to $10,000 per acre...
Overall a good idea but the amount of land sold is going to have to be much more than youre guessing. Highly productive farmland goes for maybe half of your low end around here and that's only because the prices have been driven up by warring mega-dairies. The only way youre going to get $10,000 is if its particularly nice residentially appropriate land and its just beyond the edge of town. This is rural but inhabited and useful Eastern land relatively near (40 miles) a town of some significance.
I have no idea what these speculated mostly Western acreages would be worth but I would guess that primarily because they are so far from any development they are going to be essentially worthless unless they have great mineral or lumber value. I doubt that grass, regular rocks, and sand are worth much.
Makes sense....and I believe this has been mentioned before....but way back.
Historically, the sale of the public lands to private entities was (in the past) one of the largest sources of revenue for the federal government.
"See, Trump is just one of those fat cats and they only look out for each other. He sold all of that desert critically necessary to the Yellow bellied suck toad to some other rich guy for only $500 per acre."