By Paul
Gessing and Carl Graham
In a recent New York
Times editorial, New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich asserted that
supporters of a transfer of some federal lands to the states are engaged in a
“land grab.”
He’s not just wrong he’s inverting the truth completely. It
is actually the federal government that has “grabbed” New Mexicans’ lands. In
the past two years, Heinrich endorsed the federal government’s placing of more
than 783,000 acres of New Mexico land, much of
it private or “multiple-use” in two highly restrictive “monument” designations
(the Rio Grande del Norte and Organ
Mountain monuments). Ironically, while any effort to return some federal lands to
New Mexico control would require the support and buy-in of large numbers of
state and local officials, these two areas were declared by the Obama Administration without so much as a
single vote in Congress.
It is no surprise that Heinrich would support such a real
land-grab as he is known for reflexively supporting the radical environmental
lobbying groups in Washington.
He has a 93 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters and
boasted a 100 percent score in 2013.
Given the environmental group’s penchant for shoving local
interests and traditional users aside in order to increase the size of the
federal estate (consider it one-stop-shopping for the environmental lobby),
Heinrich also vastly prefers federal control of lands to private or state
control.
First, it is important to destroy a few myths. The lands in
question are not national parks or native lands. Rather, our efforts are
focused on federal lands managed by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land
Management.
Under plans supported by the authors’ organizations, no
lands would be privatized. Rather the aforementioned lands currently managed by
Washington
would devolve to state control. Economically-speaking, the impact on New Mexico of state vs.
federal control over these lands would be stunning: up to 68,000 new jobs and
$1 billion in new tax revenues. These astounding results are not the result of
“privatizing” the lands, rather they are from simply managing Forest Service
and BLM lands as other state lands are currently managed.
These jobs and economic activity would be a tremendous boon
for New Mexico,
which Heinrich represents, and remains one of the poorest states in the nation
with little economic growth in the recent economic recovery.
Lest one be led to believe that such policies are only advocated
by radical anti-government types and Republicans, New Mexico’s current Land
Commissioner, Ray Powell, a Democrat with strong ties to the environmental
community, has advocated for having the feds return 1 million acres of BLM
lands in the state in order to bring in an estimated $50 million to fund new
early childhood programs.
Democrats too understand that bureaucrats in Washington are too
isolated and ignorant (no matter how well-intentioned) to understand the unique
needs of Western states.
Also, our efforts to restore state control over certain
federally-managed lands are by no means based entirely on economics. Climate
change is often cited in the media as the cause of recent forest fires that
have raged in New Mexico
and throughout the West. The reality is that poor federal management (or the
lack thereof) is a major contributor to rampant fires. Going back to the Native
Americans, lands were intensely managed. That ended when environmental zealots
took control of Washington’s
land management bureaucracies, eventually putting a stop to timber production
and engaging in aggressive fire suppression that has caused a buildup of
flammable material on forest floors.
Of course, users of these lands who have traditionally
benefitted from their “multiple-use” management are losing out as more and more
of these lands are locked up as “wilderness” vast tracts of which are off
limits to motor vehicles and non-recreational forms of human use.
The reality is that Heinrich and his radical friends in Washington are the ones grabbing lands in New Mexico and
elsewhere. Advocates of restoring state control over these lands are attempting
to restore some balance and sound management policies when it comes to large
tracts of Western land.
Paul
Gessing is president of the Rio Grande Foundation, a free market think tank
based in New Mexico.
Carl Graham is director of the Coalition for Self-Government in the West, a
project of the Utah-based Sutherland Institute.
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