ALEC's Intentional Destruction of National Forests

PLEASE read this entire article.
I will give you a few snips - but you have to educate yourself on this issue.
Most folks don't believe me when I write about this issue - look at it straight from the mouth of an ALEC-er.

 

(USFS Photo)

Middle Piney Lake on United States Forest Service land in the Wyoming Range. House Bill 228 would study transferring federal lands to the state of Wyoming.

By Gregory Nickerson

— February 13, 2013

Last fall state lands hawk and Utah state representative Ken Ivory appeared before a Wyoming legislative committee  calling for the transfer of federally owned lands to Western states.

Now it seems Rep. David Miller (R-Riverton) has taken up Ivory’s cause in Wyoming with House Bill 228 —Transfer of federal lands-study.

Miller is an economic geologist from Riverton and CEO of the uranium company Strathmore Minerals Corp. He disagrees with federal policies that supposedly impede, unnecessarily, development of the mineral economy in Wyoming. As an example he cited the Wyoming Range Legacy Act that withdrew National Forest land from oil and gas drilling.

Miller said he heard Ivory give a presentation about transferring public lands at an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) conference in Salt Lake City last summer. He liked the idea, and asked Wyoming’s Legislative Service Office to draft a bill on the issue.

The task force, under Miller’s proposal, would consist of nine people with members representing oil and gas, mining, agriculture, travel, and counties, plus four legislators. The group would get $30,000 to conduct the study with assistance from the School of Energy Resources at the University of Wyoming. They must file a report to the Joint Agriculture committee by November 1, 2013.

No environmentalist or concernec citizens on that task force.

Just ALEC corporate hacks.

Miller says bills and resolutions on this issue are under consideration in Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho, Nevada, and Arkansas.

 “I got quite concerned reading this (bill),” said Paul Wood, a citizen who spoke against the bill before the Senate Agriculture Committee. “I am a public land user and when I read this ‘compel the federal government to relinquish ownership’ I thought that’s what a robber does when he wants something that he doesn’t own.”

Wood emphasized that it’s incorrect to speak of “taking back” lands from the federal government, because federal lands never belonged to the Wyoming in the first place.

Wood also had concerns that transferring federal lands would ultimately put those lands in private hands, ending public access. R

Rep. Miller responded by saying any future disposal of lands to the state or private citizens could include provisions to maintain public access in perpetuity.

And most ALEC-ers are LIARS too.