http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=39293
...Uncle Sam is like a hyperactive brat who trips over his abandoned train set and stumbles over his spilled Legos while running out to slap a shiny, new dirt bike on Daddy’s credit card. Washington constantly expands the federal estate, even while mishandling its existing properties....
I have a great uncle who finally retired from BLM. He hated/despised it and what it represented, but he stayed with it until he retired....BLM lists 14 such potential monuments, from New Mexico’s 58,000-acre Lesser Prairie Chicken Preserve to California’s 3 million-acre Modoc Plateau. All told, these “Treasured Landscapes” represent approximately 12.85 million federal acres that would shift from mixed-use to virtually untouchable status. Such restrictions on these 20,078 square miles would be like Washington, D.C. banning nearly all activity in Massachusetts and Vermont, save for hiking.
BLM also cites seven prospective “land-rationalization” efforts, from 80,000 acres on Montana’s Upper Missouri River (estimated cost: $24 million) to 1.62 million acres in Wyoming’s Upper Green River Valley ($2,383,260,000). BLM wants $4.1 billion to nationalize at least 1.8 million acres. These 2,812.5 square miles are a bit larger than all of Delaware.
“This is only part of the entire document, and just addresses BLM,” says Melissa Subbotin, spokeswoman for the Congressional Western Caucus. “The Obama Administration has refused to turn over the rest of this memo, even though they publicly have acknowledged that there are sections concerning the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service. The true designs of this entire document are enormous.” Subbotin added “It is exceptionally frustrating for us. Those who drafted this memo are gleaning from a host of sources. There really isn’t much succinct definition to their intentions, motivation, or long-term goals — other than simply to lock up public land and put an end to multiple use.”
The notion of even more soil under Uncle Sam’s boots is aggravating given the chaotic state of the federal land portfolio. According to the Congressional Research Service, BLM already has a deferred-maintenance backlog of at least $480 million. At the Fish and Wildlife Service, $2.4 billion in fixes cry for attention. The US Forest Service needs $5.3 billion of work, while the National Park Service awaits $8.2 billion in road, trail, and building renovations. Why not perform these repairs before nabbing more land to neglect?
Failed federal stewardship — from refusing to thin dense foliage to restricting salvage logging of dead trees — lets lightning bolts transform forests into ashes. Nationalizing more acres will mean even more wildfires, which will cremate birds, butterflies, and other creatures.
“In business, insolvent organizations typically don’t buy more assets,” observes Reed Watson, a research fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. “Instead, valuable parts are broken up and purchased by more effective managers who, then, increase revenues and generate profits. Uncle Sam is doing exactly the opposite.”...
