Nw Lawmakers Want To Sell Federal Lands Gop Freshmen Believe Parks And Forests Should Belong To States Or Be Sold To Private Interests

Western Republicans who want state control over federal lands are reopening debate over who the national parks and forests belong to in the first place.

Several Northwest Republican freshmen are among those challenging the belief that federally owned lands in the West are the property of U.S. taxpayers everywhere.

“I don’t believe the people in Virginia own my back yard,” said Rep. Linda Smith, R-Wash. “This is a states’ rights issue.”

The lawmakers are pushing proposals to sell off or return to states some national parks, forests, range lands and wildlife refuges.

One proposal scheduled for a hearing Tuesday would give all 2.4 million acres the Bureau of Land Management owns in Oregon to the state of Oregon.

Smith and others say they would keep federal ownership of the nation’s “crown jewels” - the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone and others.

“I don’t foresee us giving the park around Mount Rainier to the state. But the national forest around it could be managed just as well by the state,” Smith told reporters recently.

“Who manages that crop best for the people? And who should get the first and best benefit from that? Probably the people closest to it, who would be the people in the state,” she said.

The House and Senate passed resolutions in May authorizing Congress to balance the federal budget partly by selling off federal assets, including national parks, forests, wildlife refuges and mineral reserves.

Another measure, already approved by a House subcommittee and backed by Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., would establish a commission to identify national parks for possible closure or sale to the private sector.

“I think we ought to be looking at selling some of those lands that could be productive in the private sector,” said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., a freshman.

“Clearly you’d want to save some of those national treasures like Mount Rainier, but there certainly should be candidates elsewhere,” he said. “When the United States was formed, those were principally state lands.”

The House Resources subcommittee on national parks and public lands scheduled the hearing Tuesday on a proposal by Reps. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, and Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., that would give BLM lands to the states.

John Adams, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the federal government could lose billions of dollars in assets by selling or transferring the lands.

“We would also be deprived of natural places whose values are incalculable and completely irreplaceable,” Adams said.

Frances Hunt, director of BLM programs for The Wilderness Society, said the federal lands “clearly belong to all Americans.”

“My taxpayer dollars, everyone’s taxpayer dollars, go into their management,” Hunt said. “They no more belong to the people whose state they happen to be in than they belong to anyone in Virginia, Alaska, Idaho or Iowa.”

Most states have a different goal in mind when managing their lands than does the federal government, she said. Rarely is there a “multiple use” mission like the one on national forests or wildlife refuges.

“Several states have requirements that the economic return be maximized,” she said. “That means areas people currently are using to fish or hunt could be mined or grazed or logged.

“Those who want to sell these lands are not interested in protecting national values but in promoting some very particular corporate and industry values.”

Smith disagreed.

“People want wilderness. I don’t think they want all the Columbia Gorge logged. I don’t think they want it sold to developers. They want to maintain it. And I want to maintain it,” Smith said. “But do they want it maintained at the federal level? Not necessarily.”