Otter wrong with sale of public land

Idaho Congressman Butch Otter is a colorful cuss who doesn’t shrink from controversial issues.

Otter, for example, was one of three Republican congressmen who voted against the Patriot Act in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Since then, many – including Idaho’s senior senator, Larry Craig, and other Republicans – have concluded that the act went too far and has eroded constitutional protections for individual citizens.

A principled Republican with libertarian tendencies, Otter remained a maverick in the face of another calamity, Hurricane Katrina, when he joined 10 other congressmen in voting against a $51.8 billion hurricane relief bill – a measure he called “throwing money at a tragedy” and “simply irresponsible.” The relief bill later passed unanimously. But Otter didn’t suffer significant political fallout.

Now, however, Otter is sponsoring a bill that is likely to jeopardize his popularity and give Democrat Jerry Brady ammunition for a possible gubernatorial match-up next year. It should. The Idaho congressman is one of 13 sponsors of HR 3855, which calls for selling millions of acres of excess public land to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina and future disasters. Idaho would be a prime target for this public land grab because the federal government owns almost two-thirds of the state. Otter’s bill would lock Americans out of too much public land.

HR 3855 calls for 15 percent of the land supervised by the Bureau of Land Management or in the national forest system to be sold, particularly land in “priority locations” – or states where more than 15 percent of the land is in public ownership. Idaho would be a prime target for the sell-off. Almost two-thirds of the state is controlled by the two federal agencies: 22 million acres by the U.S. Forest Service and 12 million acres by the BLM. A fire sale of 15 percent of Idaho’s public lands, or more than 5 million acres, would block access by the state’s hunters, fishermen and outdoor enthusiasts to a large part of their outdoor heritage.

“Idahoans like their public land just the way it is,” Brady told Betsy Russell of The Spokesman-Review. “This is not Democrats versus Republicans. This is too important for politics. It goes to the heart of why we live in Idaho.”

To his credit, Otter appears to have decent motives in pursuing his legislation. Revenue raised from the sale of public land would be used for disaster relief, including future terror attacks. Also, the purchased land would then be added to the property tax rolls in rural counties that consist largely of public lands, like Boundary, providing revenue to replace dwindling federal payments to counties and schools for timber cuts.

Rather than jettison the nation’s treasured lands, however, Otter and his companion sponsors should urge budgetary constraints to provide relief money.