Here’s how the plan will go down.
There is a movement among the members of the GOP to seize and sell off America’s national forests and other public lands.
This would mean that land presently accessible to the public, that would be We the People, would be sold to private companies where they could mine and drill for the fossil fuels that lie beneath. Then they can charge the American people for it and make huge profits.
In 2015 Representative Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican and chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, proposed that America’s public lands be transferred to state control at a cost of $50 million of taxpayer money to enable the transfers.
The states would have to begin selling the land off for private use because owning the land would add a new budget item to states leaving states having to raise taxes, open recreation areas to drilling and mining, or sell lands to private interests.
The American Lands Council (ALC), an organization founded by Utah State Representative Ken Ivory, another Republican, hired a lobbyist to “educate congressional lawmakers on the benefits of relinquishing federal lands to the states.” The lobbyist got $150,000 for just three months work which was, by the way, taxpayer money.
One of the lobbyist clients is a Utah mining company.
47 county governments have spent more than $219,000 for ALC membership which, because they get federal money in the form of Payment in Lieu of Taxes Program (PILT), which is also taxpayer money, is a violation of the Byrd Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds from a grant to be used for lobbying federal officials.
Surprisingly (NOT), all this sudden desire to sell off public lands is the result of efforts by the Koch-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
Besides Ted Cruz who constantly speaks about selling off public lands, the leaders of the movement to do so are:
Arizona: John McCain (he gave away Apache land to foreign mining companies already), Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, and Al Melvin
California: Ken Calvert, Tom McClintock, and Dana Rohrabacher
Colorado: Jerry Sonnenberg and Scott Renfroe
Idaho: Scott Bedke, Lawerence Denney, and Sheryl Nuxoll
Kentucky: Rand Paul
Montana: Jennifer Fielder and Matt Rosendale
Nevada: Cliven Bundy, Dean Heller, MarkHutchison, Demar Dahl, John Ellison, and Pete Goicoechea
New Mexico: Steve Pearce, Yvette Harrell, and Susana Martinez
Utah: Gary Herbert, Orrin Hatch, Mike Lee, Rob Bishop, Jason Chaffetz, Chris Stewart, Ken Ivory, Becky Lockhart, Phil Lyman, and Mike Noel
Washington: Cathy McMorris Rodgers
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If this happens, all those people who enjoy hunting, will either lose their hunting grounds, or may have to pay higher fees either to their states or to the private company who will get the land.
70% of all hunters who go West each year hunt strictly on public land.
Last year the state of Montana grossed over $23 million dollars in revenue from hunters and outdoorsmen traveling through the state, a figure that does not include license fees and other hunting-related expenses. That’s just the estimated amount traveling hunters spent while visiting the state.
In Colorado hunting brought in $2.8 billion in revenue.
According to the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, hunting creates over a half-million jobs in America, and many of those jobs are found in Western states.
According to the Center for Western Priorities, 72% of Westerners oppose the selling off of public lands.
When a vote was held in 2015 to sell off public lands, these senators voted to do so.
Although there are those involved in the Oregon bird sanctuary takeover who claim the high road and claim to be Constitutionalists who hold that the Constitution does not allow the government to hold public land, it would seem there is something behind this that we are not supposed to notice.
If this group were that into their principles, why do these ranchers have no problem with the 93% discount they get on fees for using public land, and why would its leader, Ammon Bundy, have accepted a half million dollar government business loan to help his private company in Arizona?
Who will benefit from the sale of public land?
The fossil fuel industry and their puppets in Washington.
Perhaps the Bundys might profit from this, but will those they led into the insurgence get anything more than the feeling they have won something?
That is until any reasonable people among them find they have been used for the benefit of others.