As far as the law goes, there’s little chance that states will succeed in gaining control over federal lands, says a Bozeman, Mont.-based economist. Not that a lands transfer is such a good bargain anyway. If states were to gain jurisdiction over federal lands, they would also incur the cost of firefighting, with each state putting together its own firefighting apparatus to replicate the feds’ own system, said Ray Rasker, executive director of Headwaters Economics, a nonpartisan think tank. And all of this would happen just as the fire seasons are getting worse, and the cost of firefighting is increasing, due in part to climate change/Kevin Richert, The EDge, IdahoED News. More here.

Question: Would you want to see Idaho take over management of federal lands, if it meant that the state would be on the hook for fighting forest fires?