http://www.latimes.com/opinion/edit...bertarian-transcript-20160729-snap-story.html
MG: Can I ask if you believe that federal public lands should be returned to control of the states?
GJ: You know, I don’t go along with the Forest Service lands. I don’t go along with wilderness lands returned to the state. But the BLM [Bureau of Land Management], that’s a whole other topic.
I don’t want to say that you don’t know this, but you realize that in New Mexico, certainly Utah, it’s laid out in checkerboard. It’s laid out in red squares and black squares. And I’m talking about BLM land…. So there’s no understanding at all of what BLM lands represent. What you do see at times is Ted Turner. Ted Turner has 1 million acres in New Mexico. Well 500,000 acres are private land and 500,000 are leased land from the BLM. Well it’s checkerboard. It’s geometric red, you look at the horizon in New Mexico and you are looking at red squares and black squares. So to give control of those BLM lands to the state and sell that land to the private landowners, and actually put that on private property tax rolls, that makes a lot of sense.
And when we think of public lands, I think people think of these riparian wonderful areas when the reality is anything but.