...So, what about transferring federal lands to Montana? Greens, of course, are fine with the current dysfunction, as it empowers them, not average Montanans. The mere idea of the state of Montana controlling any current Forest Service lands has environmentalists in a tizzy, making all sorts of specious claims – such as:
Montana can’t afford the cost of wildfire fighting. Utter tommyrot, at least in the long term. Today’s high, landscape-scale fire risk (a result of paralytic federal policy) is certainly real, but can only change for the better with DNRC (and Montana’s Land Board – whom Montanans get to select) in charge. Anyone with eyes and a brain visiting state trust lands – I suggest Pig Farm/Kuhns and both Spencer units for your examination – has to realize that Montana DNRC does fantastic work in terms of habitat, safety and economic outcomes. Period. Even if Montana saw some big fires in the short run, rather than leave dead trees to rot, merchantable wood would be timely salvaged, with sale proceeds plowed back into rapid replanting of the next forest.
Ranchers would see their grazing fees increase. Pure cow flop. Private land grazing costs around $20-23 per AUM (animal unit, basically a cow/calf pair) in Montana according to USDA, with Montana’s state trust minimum being about $6.12/AUM, with a relatively few competitive leases bringing fees about 80 percent of the private rate. So the federal monthly grazing fee of $1.35/AUM (snarlingly protected by Western congresscritters) seems dirt cheap. But Greens won’t admit “cheap” federal fees come with a huge downside of risk. Litigation all across the West has given federal AUMs a bad habit of disappearing at the worst possible moment – becoming unavailable at any price, often permanently. Would savvy ranchers pay more for predictability? Gladly.
Recreation access would decrease. Absolute tommyrot. On federal ground, access for everything, except the most-politically-correct recreation, currently stinks. While state-land recreation access is not THAT much better today, it’s mostly worth the 10 bucks. Further, the Land Board could improve recreation access even more if Montanans encouraged them to.
Payment in lieu of taxes (PILT) would go away. Deflectionist sludge. First of all, PILT cash is chumpola changeola: $28 million statewide in 2014 on 30 million acres. The annual amount per acre of PILT? In Montana, it runs from 27 cents in Petroleum County to $2.53 per acre in Custer County. What’s the property tax on your acres of paradise, kids?
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