Potentially about one-third of national forest and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) property could be sold to finance transportation infrastructure, under new legislation. Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) introduced the American Land Act (H.R. 1931), which would require the United States Forest Service (USFS) and BLM to auction off for sale to the highest bidder eight percent of their real estate per year over the next five years, starting in FY 16. The bill became available online on the congressional website on Saturday, May 2, 2015. The bill would allow the agencies to put restrictions on the sales that they deem in the “public interest.” But the bill assumes buyers would be interested in the mineral rights. The agencies would have to structure sales to maximize “marketability,” though the language puts some restrictions on the mineral rights for sale.
Buyers would have to be American citizens or American corporations or partnerships. All proceeds from the sales would go to the Highway Trust Fund. Poe says that the sales could pump billions of dollars into repairing the decaying roads and bridges across the country. And, of course, Poe says that the sales would create jobs and boost the economy...more
That's right! Cuz we don't want all those wore out roads damaging those shiny little electric cars, now do we?
Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
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