by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow
The Daily Sentinel
I attended a meeting last week about federal ownership of Western lands and various proposals to transfer some of it to states. To settle a bet, I asked a popular AI tool how that might work, just to test its objectivity.
It said, “Transferring public lands to state control can lead to significant challenges and risks for public access and conservation.” It explained that states have limited authority to manage; lack money and staff; might each manage lands differently “undermining broader conservation goals and ecosystem resilience;” are more subject to political pressures; and might limit public access. So much for objectivity — as if public access is guaranteed on all federal lands, and that federal agencies are fully staffed to guarantee ecosystem resilience.
A blog I sometimes read attracts many public comments, including this simple response from Jeff: “While the federal government is not the best at much of anything… If you give/transfer public lands to state control, all they’re going to do is destroy them over time and ruin it for everyone, just to rake in that all mighty dollar!!”
It’s a very common sentiment and it’s demonstrably wrong. In fact, it’s offensive. Can I sue someone if I’m offended?
Frank Herbert, the novelist who wrote “Dune” and its sequels, famously said, “The people who can destroy a thing, they control it.” Right, and the federal government, not states, control national forests and other public lands. That has become a death sentence for many of those treasured forests.
