# Bush administration plans to sell $1 billion in public lands



## One Eye (Sep 10, 2000)

*Bush administration plans to sell $1 billion in public lands*
"Largest sale of its kind since 1905 would help pay for rural schools and roads"

Janet Wilson / Los Angeles Times

The Bush administration plans to sell off 300,000 acres in public lands to raise more than $1 billion over the next decade. Most of the proceeds would help pay for rural schools and roads. Should Congress approve the land sale? 

The Bush administration Friday laid out plans to sell off more than $1 billion in public lands over the next decade, including 85,000 acres of National Forest land in California.

Most of the proceeds would help pay for rural schools and roads, making up for a federal subsidy that has been eliminated from President Bush's 2007 budget.

Congress must approve the sales, which several experts said would amount to the largest sale of its kind since President Theodore Roosevelt established the U.S. Forest Service in 1905 and created the modern national forest system.

"This is a fire sale of public lands. It is utterly unprecedented," said Char Miller, professor of environmental history at Trinity University in Houston, who has written extensively about the Forest Service. "It signals that the lands and the agency that manages them are in deep trouble. For the American public, it is an awful way to understand that it no longer controls its public land."

The U.S. Forest Service has earmarked over 300,000 acres for sale in 32 states, including tracts in California national forests, ranging in size from 90 acres in the Angeles National Forest in Los Angeles to 32,921 acres in the Klamath National Forest in northwest California. Most of the land in the state slated for the auction block would be scattered across six national forests in the Sierra Nevada.

In a companion proposal inserted into this week's massive 2007 budget, White House officials directed the U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials to sell off at least $350 million worth more public land, with the funds to go directly to the general treasury.

High-ranking agriculture officials said Friday the national forest lands selected for sale are "isolated, expensive to manage, and no longer meeting forest service system needs," and do not include wilderness areas or habitat vital to wildlife.

"Is selling off Bitterroot National Forest or the Sierra National Forest or Yellowstone National Park a good idea? No, not in general," said Under Secretary Mark Rey. "But I challenge these people who are engaging in this flowery rhetoric ... to take a hard look at these specific parcels and tell me they belong in national forest ownership."

While acknowledging the proposed sale was the largest of its kind in decades, and possibly ever, Rey said the national forest system has swelled to 193 million acres, and the amount sold would amount to less than one-tenth of a percent. He also said all of the acreage could be regained in new land acquisitions, although he acknowledged reduced funding for such programs.

Rey added: "Education of rural school children, that's an investment in the nation's future as important as any other investment we could make. That purpose justifies the approach we're proposing."

Rey said the sales were necessary because it was impossible to find enough funds elsewhere in a declining Forest Service budget to make up for the loss of the school and road subsidies. He said the property sold would be subject to fair market appraisals.

The Forest Service's total proposed budget for 2007 is $4.1 billion, down about $160 million from 2006.

The public will have 30 days to comment after maps of the lands proposed for sale are published, which the agency expects to do by the end of the month. Some parcels might be removed after public comment if they are deemed too valuable to lose.

Several members of Congress condemned the proposed sales, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) who called the sales "a terrible idea based on a misguided sense of priorities. First, the administration is proposing to sell off public lands to help finance the president's budget. And secondly, the administration plans to ratchet down and then terminate an important program that has been the life-blood for rural schools in California and many other states. I will do everything I can to defeat this effort."

Feinstein said that while funding of rural schools and roads should continue, it should not be financed by the sale of public lands. Noting that California's rural counties received $69 million from the program, Feinstein said, "a stable funding source must be provided, but not at the expense of our wilderness."

Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said full continued funding for rural roads and schools should come from the general fund, not from public land sales.

"The administration found billions to fund subsidies for energy company boondoggles, so I have trouble believing they couldn't find the money in this budget environment to maintain support for rural Oregon counties," he said in a statement.

But Sen. Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican who chairs the subcommittee that will take up the matter, was more guarded. In a statement, he said that while he was "very pleased" that the president included funding for rural counties, "I do have preliminary concerns ... Public lands are an asset that need to be managed and conserved."

Congress mandated payments to the counties from the federal treasury in 2000 after the timber industry declined, and revenue for local schools and roads dried up. The act expires at the end of 2006, and there is a bipartisan effort in the Senate to extend the payments another five years.

The president's budget also requires the Bureau of Land Management to radically ramp up its land sales as well, mandating $350 million in sales by 2016. Although the agency has authority to sell land at any time, it is not common. According to BLM spokesperson Celia Boddington, in 2004 the agency sold less than 10,000 acres, raising $16 million for the federal treasury.

Boddington said the agency has no idea yet how many acres they would be required to sell to meet the budget goals. The BLM is the largest federal landowner, with some 260 million acres spread across the West.

The list of natonal forest lands that could sell is available at http://www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/spd.html. Maps for the sites will be available by the end of February.


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## ellsworthcj5 (Feb 10, 2006)

nice the United nations own federal thans to clinton. so another words more foreign countries can own U.S. The world coming to and end.


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## glnmiller (Jan 7, 2006)

We all need to write our congressman to voice opposition to this sale.


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## frenchriver1 (Jul 5, 2005)

You can bet that if this goes thru the money made will surely not make its way to rural schools, but for pork barrel earmarked projects for members of congress like the bridges to nowhere...


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## hornet007 (Feb 11, 2006)

This is another example of this administration's despicable record on the environment. If these lands fall into private hands, the environmental control the federal government has had on them will be vanquished. In addition, if these are remote parcels that people are going to purchase, even for hunting and fishing, then roads will have to be built to access them, or helicopters used over areas that don't see such activity often. Our country should not be for sale.


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

This is nothing new. FYI GW Bush on Feb 7 also sold a $1B of public lands in the state of Nevada. Bush's culture of coruption usually sells the prime public land to his cronies then uses the money to pay for projects that were supposed to be funded in other legitimate ways. This way he can get the projects done and at the same time pay back his campaign contributors and lobbyist buddies.

Here is another example of Bush's slimeball activities.

May 05, 2004
Bush Hands Million-Dollar Public Land to Mining Company for $875 

Last month the Bush administration handed a multinational mining company 155 acres of federally owned, prime mountaintop real estate near a Colorado ski resort. The price? Just $5 an acre (a total of $875), in an area where 1/10 of an acre fetches as much as $100,000. 

The sweetheart giveaway sailed through under a 132-year-old federal law that allows mining companies to purchase unrestricted patents on public land, and then use the land for their own profit -- by mining it for silver, gold or other minerals or even by developing it into luxury condominiums and getaway homes. 

The 1872 Mining Law, which has never been updated to reflect 21st century real estate values, has enabled mining companies to extract more than $245 billion in metals and minerals from public lands without paying a single subsidy to taxpayers since the statute went into effect 132 years ago. It currently applies to more than 270 million acres of public lands in the U.S., or "2/3 of the land the federal government holds in trust for all Americans." 

Phelps Dodge Corp. used the 1872 law to apply for nine patents on U.S. Forest Service land at the top of Mount Emmons, also known as the "Red Lady," just three miles west of the Crested Butte ski area in Colorado. The area, which lies within the boundaries of Gunnison National Forest, is the site of a longstanding battle between mining interests and the local community, which has since filed suit against the federal Bureau of Land Management protesting its sale of the patents. The suit is being brought by the Gunnison County Board of Commissioners, the Town of Crested Butte and High Country Citizens' Alliance. 

Phelps Dodge claims the land can be used to operate a molybdenum mine, though opponents argue such a use would not be profitable since there is already a large supply of this ore (used in rifle barrels, batteries and lubricants) on the market. 

Observers believe the company is more likely to develop the land into vacation homes. Indeed, in legal documents filed two years ago in a separate case, the company argued that establishing a mine on that land would be fiscally "reckless." 

"Once again the abuses allowed by the outdated 1872 Mining Law are being exploited by mining companies -- free gold, silver or molybdenum, access to prime real estate at 1872 prices, no environmental standards -- what's not to like? Unless you're not a mining company," said Steve D'Esposito, president of EarthWorks, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that fights for reform of the 1872 law. 
###

GW Bush will go down in history as the most corrupt anti-environmental and anti-hunt/fish administration in US history. He knows that the hunters and fishers that voted for him are hard core hypocrites that don't care and Bush's cronies are laughing all the way to the bank with their help.


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## Linda G. (Mar 28, 2002)

I am not a hypocrite. I voted for GW. But this is a mistake, and I think he's about to find that out. 

As for the piece above, yes, if that price is right, obviously there was some cronyism involved-but that's not something that's relegated only to the Republican party. And BLM land, much of which is already leased to mining companies and ranchers and is already inaccessible to the public, gets bought and sold all the time, that's nothing new. 

We're talking about the sale of our national forest lands here-and that's not right. Teddy Roosevelt, who is also one of my heroes, despite the fact that he was a Democrat, is probably rolling in his grave. 

Some things are just plain wrong, whether it's a proposal by a Republican or a Democrat. Bill Clinton had some pretty bright ideas, too, that were simply exercises in stupidity. He will certainly never be one of my heroes. 

So let's forget about partisanship and start thinking about what's right and wrong-this proposal to sell some of our national forestlands, which could only be the tip of an overwhelming iceberg, is wrong...


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## multibeard (Mar 3, 2002)

Ya and "OUR" DNR will probably be giving two big blocks of land on the PM river in Mason county to the FEDS. The DNR doesn't want to manage our lands, they would rather give contol to Washington.:yikes: 

If they don't sell it the sure as heck will block off the roads accessing the river.


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## hondodeerhunter (Feb 1, 2006)

Linda G. said:


> I am not a hypocrite. I voted for GW. But this is a mistake, and I think he's about to find that out.
> We're talking about the sale of our national forest lands here-and that's not right. Teddy Roosevelt, who is also one of my heroes, despite the fact that he was a Democrat, is probably rolling in his grave.
> 
> 
> ...


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican, but keep in mind the Republican party back then was much more to be proud of than the party of today.


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## Big Frank 25 (Feb 21, 2002)

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9  More than three dozen energy companies fell nearly $500 million behind last year on royalty payments the federal government says they owed for oil and gas extracted from public territory, according to Interior Department documents released Thursday


You don't suppose these lands are for sale? Do you?


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## WILDCATWICK (Mar 11, 2002)

Great budget. Why isn't that the politicians (sorry about the partisianship I voted for GW too), especially the Republican Presidents can't spend less than what they bring in. I'm sick of the deficit and the unjust it causes us and will cause our childern. 

He doesn't have enough money in his budget for rual education. I guesse that wasn't very high on his priority list, when originally dividing up where the monies should go. I'm not even sure if that's where the funds would truely go. More or less that's the claims of where it will go becuase it sure sounds alot better than saying it's going into research or something else. It all is in one pot at a point. 

Tired of it. Here is what I found out on the USDA website:


> The money received from the sales (up to $800 million) would go towards funding states and counties impacted by the loss of receipts associated with lower timber harvests on federal lands. The legislation would amend the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act for an additional five years.


So the money is not going soley for education. It's going to compensate lower timber harvests? Then it only be a 5 year difference maker for the Act. $800 million of land for 5 years Rual schools. 




> nice the United nations own federal thans to clinton. so another words more foreign countries can own U.S. The world coming to and end.


I have no idea what your comment has to do with anything involved in the article maybe you could expand. But it did make me think of one thing. If it was a part of that I don't think he would be allowed to sell the land. 
I can't think of any problems we have had yet with the UN being APART of monitoring National heritage land and landmarks.


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## TGILS (Mar 7, 2005)

What can we do to stop this or made our voices heard loud and clear? Can this Web site put something together that can be submitted to our congressman or congresswoman? It is one thing to not know about this, but it is irresponsible to know about it and do nothing! Any ideas???


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## Rusher (Jan 6, 2006)

Wait and see who purchases the land and don't forget there will also be buyers from other countries. Now as an American, see if you can purchase land in another country.:yikes:


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

Selling closer to the Great Lakes:

Superior Forest land up for sale
NATIONAL FORESTS: The Bush administration wants to sell public land to help balance the budget.

More than 2,600 acres in the Superior National Forest have been added to a national list of public land the Bush administration wants to sell to help balance the federal budget.

http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthtribune/news/local/13876303.htm


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

There are some carrots hung out to sway the PR such as including $42 million for the Clark County Shooting Park, which is planned on almost 3,000 acres of north of Las Vegas. These tactics are there to divide the opposition while the developers make the big money.


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 14, 2006

CONTACT: 
Eric Antebi 415-977-5747 
Annie Strickler 202-675-2384 

Bush Administration's Proposed Sale of National Forest, Other Public Lands Is Shameful

Statement by Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope

The Bush administration recently proposed auctioning off hundreds of thousands of acres of public land managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to raise federal revenues in its FY 2007 budget. The administration is hoping to sell National Forest lands from California to West Virginia raising as much as $800 million over 5 years; they are hoping to raise $250 million from the sale of BLM lands. 

The Forest Service is expected to publish the list of lands they propose for sale, with maps, in the federal register at the end of February. A draft list is already available at http://www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/spd.html . In addition, Congress will be taking up the President's Budget Proposal this spring through the fall of 2006, when spending decisions for 2007 should be finalized. 

In response to the proposed land sales, the Sierra Club's issued the following statement from Executive Director Carl Pope:

"The Bush administration's proposal to auction off National Forest and other lands is shameful. These lands not only belong to you and me, but they also belong to future generations, and they should not be sold off to the highest bidder for development. And there is no reason why the world's biggest economic power should have to sell off parkland to make ends meet. 

"This is just the latest in a series of disturbing proposals coming from the Bush administration and its allies in Congress to give oil, mining, timber and real estate speculators increased access to pristine natural areas. Last fall, House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo suggested selling of more than a dozen of the nation's national parks and attempted to insert language in the federal budget that would have let mining and real estate companies by millions of acres of federal land at rock bottom prices. 

"If the federal government truly believes it's desperate for revenue, there are better ways to balance the books. Maybe it's time to reconsider the billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks that the administration and Congress awarded to oil industry just last year despite the fact that the industry had record profits. Or ask Alaska to give back hundreds of millions of tax dollars rather than spend them on two Bridges to Nowhere. 

"No responsible homeowner would sell off the foundation on his house to pay his mortgage. America's public lands are the nation's natural endowment and they ought to be managed with long term stewardship, not carelessly cast off for a quick buck."
###


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

Also you can read the Wilderness Society statement on the Bush plan to sell off public lands at:

http://www.wilderness.org/Library/Documents/upload/Factsheet-LandSellOff.pdf

You can send comments about the proposal to your congressperson and senators from the Wilderness Society Website. The addresss is:

http://action.wilderness.org/campaign/nationalparks/?qp_source=200602_adv_nphome


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

NOTE: "including some 5,880 acres of national forest land in the Upper Peninsula." Yep, GW Bush came back to screw the yoopers that voted for him......poetic justice and sad that everyone else that knew better suffers as well.

February 19, 2006
Editorial
http://www.record-eagle.com/2006/feb/19editb.htm

Selling forest heritage 
The Bush administration is proposing the sale of more than 300,000 acres of public land in 41 states - including some 5,880 acres of national forest land in the Upper Peninsula.
Funds generated from the sales, estimated to be more than $1 billion, would be used to pay rural counties and school districts in areas hurt by logging cutbacks.
As Dave Alberworth, a public lands expert with The Wilderness Society said, "this is not going to be politically acceptable to most people."
In Michigan, we value our public lands as places to hunt, hike, camp, fish and enjoy rare solitude from our increasingly hectic lives.
The public lands in Michigan, as vast as they may seem, are small indeed in the face of encroaching development and sprawl. Those lands generate untold value in tourism, wildlife, and yes, logging in appropriate circumstances.
To sell off this heritage to help balance the budget, in the face of huge tax cuts given to the rich, is the height of folly.
Future generations would not look kindly at the short-sighted policy that would deprive them of opportunities we currently enjoy in the dwindling wildlands.
While the current proposal avoids land sales in the Huron-Manistee National Forest, once the administration goes down this road, no public land could be considered safe from being put up for auction.
What next? Condos at Sleeping Bear Dunes?
Congress should tell the president that tax cuts to the rich should not be paid for by selling public lands that we, and future generations, find priceless.


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

Land sale plan tilted in Northwest's favor 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than a quarter of the $800 million the Bush administration plans to raise by selling national forest would benefit rural schools in Oregon and Washington, though just 6 percent of the sales would occur in those forest-rich states.

Only about 10 percent of the proceeds would go toward rural schools in the South and Midwest, the two regions where more than a third of the sales of 300,000-plus acres would occur, according to an analysis by the Southern Environmental Law Center.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BUSH_LAND_SALE?SITE=MITRA&SECTION=POLITICS

More 
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/...?SITE=MITRA&SECTION=POLITICS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


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## Gene Dipzinski (Nov 22, 2003)

I cant understand why all the complaining on this issue. After all TX being the second largest state in area has probably less public land than RI and the typical Texan seems to be quite content. I lived there 35 years ago and noticed a great separation of low class and low percentage wealthy type citizens. It was like medieval times in history. The peasants just accepted thats the way things should be. You render honors to the elite and continue supporting(voting for) them. Can you see the average Texan affording the high prices of hunting leases on TX land? Thats the future for all our states. And if youre into the political circles you can even hunt for quail on these private elaborate ranches without a license. Anybody that supports todays political regime is asking for major steps back in history. OK, I voted for GW for his first term  like a lot of Americans I couldnt tolerate Clintons uncontrolled appetite for interns and other females. There are two GW public scenes that got to me  first his promenading on that carrier flight deck in a flight suit claiming victory over Iraq  what a buffoon. Then when he was elected for his second term Ive got CAPITAL NOW and he announced his continued attack on social security. Well maybe thats what yall want. Bush and his cronies have acquired lots of wealth that they can now spread outside TX and buy what they want and where they want. You asked for it, live with it. No, contrary to what the BSB boys claim, I am not a LIBERAL. Over many years Ive probably split equally depending on the person being voted for. In my many years on this planet, Ive never seen a greater mess. IT IS GOING TO PLAN  DONT GRIPE.


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## Whit1 (Apr 27, 2001)

"The Bush administration plans to sell off 300,000 acres in public lands to raise more than $1 billion over the next decade. Most of the proceeds would help pay for rural schools and roads. Should Congress approve the land sale?"


How do you spell deer hunting in Texas? Only for those who can afford the land! That's what we'll be getting. 

As for the $billion dollars helping rural schools, this is a drop in the bucket and not worth the cost of losing federal lands.

Support this money grubbing land grab? HELL NO!!!!


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## ESOX (Nov 20, 2000)

I have an idea, why don't we cut back some of the billions and billions we shell out in foreign aid to balance the budget? Oh yea, then the politicians cronies wouldn't end up with our land.


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## Big Frank 25 (Feb 21, 2002)

Wonder if there is any truth to this.

If it is, who's buying this land?


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

Here is a real deal of campaign contributions buying off Bush's favors.

Roads to nowhere

http://www.record-eagle.com/2006/may/20editc.htm

Would you spend $48.5 million to get back $500,000? Congress did that last year to build roads in Alaska's Tongass National Forest so private timber companies could log it. The sale of those trees gross the government $500,000.

Even without factoring in the loss of precious old growth timber, that's a lousy deal. Yet Congress is poised to make a similar deal this year. A bipartisan group of lawmakers ... would block the Forest Service from spending money to build roads for timber sales in the Tongass ...

The Tongass is America's last surviving temperate rain forest and our largest national forest, encompassing 17 million acres in the Alaskan panhandle and several islands off the coast. Building "roads to nowhere" for private timber companies is a waste of precious resources: taxpayers' dollars and trees.


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