Topics this month are
the unreliable and inefficient management of federal property, the elite
setting aside land for the elite, and hogs going wild over Michelle’s menu
Management??
You will often see figures like the federal government owns
650 million acres or the feds claim ownership of 29 percent of the land mass in
the U.S.
The truth is, the feds have no idea how much property they
own, nor do they know the exact location of all of those lands for which they
claim ownership. Believe me, I know this
from personal experience.
In 1982 President Reagan created the Asset Management
Program, whose purpose was to identify surplus, unneeded or hard to manage
federal property and to dispose of it.
By Presidential Order, the program was to be managed by a Property
Review Board, a cabinet-level entity to be run out of the White House. That same year, the Property Review Board
ordered an inventory of all lands owned by the Department of Interior, the
Department of Agriculture and the Corps of Engineers.
That’s where Yours Truly comes in, as I staffed this program
for Secretary Watt at Interior. To
complete the survey I had to meet with all the land management agencies and
bureaus within Interior. This meant
working with the BLM, Park Service, Fish & Wildlife Service, Bureau of
Reclamation, Bureau of Mines and Bureau of Indian Affairs to discuss the
inventory and methods of determining whether particular properties should be
retained or put up for disposal. Two
things became immediately clear: 1)
Overnight I became the most unpopular person at Interior, and 2) There was no
consistent method of identifying and tracking federal property. Those annual reports were estimates. Guesstimates would be a more accurate
description.
Politically, the program was unpopular and died over time.
Things aren’t any better today. The Government Accountability Office (GAO)
has found the feds waste $2 billion a year managing 77,000 unneeded federal
buildings. Another report says the BLM
has identified 3.4 million acres for disposal as a result of their land use
planning process, but the lands are still being retained. Other reports have shown the Department of
Interior has 26 different financial systems and over 100 different property
tracking systems and the Department of Defense has over 300 different property
management systems. You get the picture.
To remedy this, Senator Lisa Murkowski has introduced S.
1225, the Federal Land Asset Inventory Reform (FLAIR) Act. This legislation would establish, once and
for all, a “single, multi-purpose and uniform” computer data base to track
these properties. Murkowski says with
such a list of lands each agency can look at its inventory, dispose of unneeded
property and identify and eliminate waste and duplication of activities. The Act specifically authorizes the Secretary
to designate “any parcels…that can be better managed by ownership through a
non-Federal entity, including a state, local, or tribal government, nonprofit
organization, or the private sector.” Let’s
hope she gets it done.
Valles Caldera
Recall that Senator Heinrich got these 89,000 acres transferred
from the Santa Fe
National Forest to the
Park Service as part of a political deal in last year’s National Defense
Authorization Act.
The Park Service is now holding public hearings on
management of the area, and we are beginning to see what the native folks and
traditional users are up against – limited access in general and a slow phasing
out of most hunting and grazing. Yes, I know the legislation says there
"shall" be grazing, but it also says,"at levels and locations
determined by the Secretary to be
appropriate." Read Park Service policy on its website and
you'll find this: "The Service will phase out the commercial grazing
of livestock whenever possible and manage recreational and administrative uses
of livestock to prevent those uses from unacceptably impacting park
resources." Apply the general policy to the legislative language,
and if you are seeking "commercial" livestock grazing, forget
it. The whole thing is being set up to allow grazing for the "interpretation
of the ranching history of the Preserve", and that will probably mean Park
Service cows managed by Park Service employees. Similar limitations
are placed upon hunting and trapping.
Does anyone
consider the NPS to be pro-hunting? Pro-grazing? Not exactly.
Members
of the group Caldera Action have spent years advocating for National Park
Service management because, their spokesmen says, the Park Service will police
“wayward cattle”, they didn’t want it “treated like a piece of multiple-use
land where you have…cows and litter”, but that “hiking and cross-country
skiing” are less destructive.
A huge
preserve has been set aside for the elite to camp, hike and convene with
nature. The traditional uses made by the folks native to the area will be
eliminated over time. That, I'm afraid, will be the final outcome of this
Udall/Heinrich legislation.
Twitter Battle
I’ve written before that school kids, unhappy with their
lunches under the new guidelines, have been posting pictures of the
unappetizing lunches to Twitter, with the hashtag #ThanksMichelleObama. Many of these have gone viral and apparently
Michelle’s minions aren’t happy about it.
Pushing back, Deborah Kane, director of the USDA Farm to School Program, posted a photo of a school lunch from a charter school and saying, “Beautiful meals like this are what’s for lunch today and every day in schools across the country.” Kane then added, “I am certain there’s no end to the great photos we could share with one another,” she said. “Post a photo of what your school is doing on Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Facebook or Tumblr using #farmtoschool or #realschoolfood.”
I’m afraid it didn’t work. Kane is learning what ordinary folks already knew: Never take on a teenager in a Twitter contest.
Michelle O, broccoli bugs, hogs
Students
in Conroe, Texas may never eat vegetables again.
Sorry,
Michelle O, but as they started to bite down on their broccoli they discovered
something else was there – bugs.
You see, it’s the pigs, not kids, who are going hog wild over Michelle O’s new school lunch nutrition standards.
In Rio Rancho, New Mexico, so many fruits and vegetables are being dumped by the students that Galloping Grace Youth Ranch is making daily pickups at several elementary schools. Their weekly haul is FIVE TONS! The ranch manager says it’s like a fresh salad bar each day and the hogs “love it.”
Put another way, the hogs are eating the First Lady’s lunch.
Till next time, be a nuisance to the devil and don’t forget to check that cinch.
Frank DuBois was the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003, is the author of a blog: The Westerner (www.thewesterner.blogspot.com) and is the founder of The DuBois Rodeo Scholarship
A version of this column appeared in the June issue of the NM Stockman and the Livestock Market Digest
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