Big Finn, I think your description of the opportunities Montana has opened up to NR as laying the pipe to them is uncalled for and over the top, MT does give an advantage to the resident sportsmen as does all other States, Laying the pipe to them is not even close,
I guess we will disagree on that one.
A 30X differential between resident and non-resident fees for the most popular species, elk/deer, meets my definition of laying the pipe to non-residents. Not saying other states don't have disparities, but we lead the way. And, I think that is a factor in convincing NRs how important this issue is to all hunters, residents and NRs, and that it will only get worse if this transfer occurs.
I understand if you feel otherwise.
Fin,
After reading your post its almost sounds like the land is simply a burden to manage and only big brother has deep enough pockets to properly do so. Basically no state should want to take control of the land because they could not afford it. Many states already do have some sizeable pieces of land to manage and they do so in a much more efficient manner. It's not like this would be the first time the state had to do this. I think it would still probalby require federal funding being given to the state but I think the state could manage it mroe efficiently with less cost and do a better job of managing resources and getting some additional income from the land such as fair market value for grazing contracts and additional income from logging which in turn could help decrease the costs of firefighting becasue of less fires or easier to contain fires.
Agree on the fringe minority part 100%. I guess I think states might be able to ignore some of what you are talking about better than the federal government. An example would be the most recent squatter/Bundy case. Would a state government been able to better take care of this land than basically letting the guy graze for free for many years and then gettingt into some stupid standoff with nothign to show for it but a black eye? I've gotta think that most states would handle the land better than that.
From what I have seen in the construction business the federal proejcts have the most red tape and ridiculous requirements compared to other state and county goverment proejcts. It also seem like the state government is able to better serve the states needs and operate more efficiently than the federal governmetn can.
Do you think the federal government is particularly good or efficient at doing anything these days? I sure don't. I think that in most cases states can do a better job than the federal government can and do it with less cost to taxpayers.
Like I said eralier when the federal governmernt was shut down the state of South Dakota was interested in operating MT Rushmore. I see no reason why the people of South Dakota could not do a better job of operating the federal porperty in the Blak Hills with significantly less federal money than what is currently spent. Honestly it is pretty amazing what some states and other organizations have done to increase the available public hunting/fishing opportunities both in acres and in habitat improvement.
It is staggering how much more manpower it seems like is required to manage federal land compared to other state and private land owners. I've been on ranches where 4-5 people kept up with managing the land and the livestock on over 100k acres. Everything from farming, branding, calving, fencing, machine/building/barn/house/road maintenence, etc..
Compare that to federal NWR's which require a small army of people, bologists, maintenence, secretary, etc... along with millions in facilites and equipment plus whatever work they contract out. Same with the local office i my area. 30+ employees not including JobCorps which is another complete waste of money that we have yet to touch on. The federal government deided it could do a better job teaching people life skills than technical colleges so they decided to go in the education business. Yet another example of state and private groups being better than the federal government at doing something, in this case providing 16-25 year olds technical training. Would be much cheaper for taxpayers and better for the students to get technical training elsewhere and give scholarships to them instead of what job corps has turned into.
I'm not buying the "they are going to sell our public land" yet. I have no doubt that could change at some point but it seems more like something to shock people with instead of a genuine concern at this point but I probably just don't know what is really going on. The USFS and BLM land could listed on EBAY of China as we speak. At least if we sold it to them we sould actually get paid instead of just borrowing more money from them to buy land from ourselves.
I'm not defending the Federal government as the model of efficiency. Never have, and never will. I agree with the point you are making about the Feds being financially inefficient, but I also look at that in the context of how many rules they are subjected to, not just with land management, but everything else they are part of.
But none of that is solved on western lands by the states taking control. The states are not going to be any more efficient at winning court cases brought under the ESA. The states are not going to be able to convince people to move away from the fire-cycled forest any more than the Feds could convince them. I doubt state politicians will look at the people and ask them to accept that their house burning down is a consequence of building there. I doubt people would accept that news any better from state officials. I could go on and on of issues that people point to that will be the same, no matter who owns the land.
Point is, when it comes to these land policies, the rub is not about economic inefficiencies that drive you and I nuts. It is about the centuries-old battle of ideologies of who is going to have control over the lands. Recently, the courts have handed an disproportionate control to groups who are good at manipulating the process and the Federal laws we have.
The issue at hand, as it relates to these Federal lands is about people not getting their way in how the lands are managed. Not an unexpected outcome when we have 300 million citizens all asking for different things from those lands.
None of it relates to the financial inefficiency of the Federal government. That inefficiency is just a political opportunity for these fringe operators to further their real goal of disposing of public lands.
It is hard to not laugh out loud when a fringe operator screams about how much the Feds lose on grazing, yet they are the same person who advocates that we keep the grazing rates at 1964 pricing. Or, they scream about not "getting out the cut," yet market rates of stumpage are so low, you cannot sell it for enough to cover the costs of the timber sale. I could mention many more examples. If they were concerned about a return on those lands, they would change all these crazy rules that they support when it benefits them or their friends.
I hope you are correct about them not selling these lands, but having listened to, and read, some of their comments, they are very bold in talking about disposing of the lands, until they know someone might use it against them. Then they change the argument to an issue of inefficiency, not wanting people to hear the true motive.
But, even if not sold, how do we replace access and recreation opportunities lost due to state laws that say where you cannot camp or hunt on state lands, or cannot do so in the same manner we can today? Or, the states who get these lands and pass laws further restricting recreation access?
I tell these folks that I would accept this transfer to the states under one condition. Every acre of land transferred to the states would have the deed amended to give public access to these lands the same as access existed prior to transfer and such access be in perpetuity; perpetuity applying to future owners. If they really had no intent to dispose of them, seems they would gladly guarantee public access until the ends of time.
When you bring that idea up to them, they spit, stammer, call you a few names, and tell you little you understand about the issue. I suspect I understand more than they want me to understand.
