Two Sides to John McCain’s Land Swap Deals
The Washington Post has further information on an unfolding story regarding several “land swap” deals endorsed by presidential hopeful Senator John McCain, at least one of which seems to be producing a financial windfall for one of the Arizona Senator’s largest fundraisers.
PRESCOTT, Ariz. — Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential campaign fundraisers.
Initially reluctant to support the swap, the Arizona Republican became a key figure in pushing the deal through Congress after the rancher and his partners hired lobbyists that included McCain’s 1992 Senate campaign manager, two of his former Senate staff members (one of whom has returned as his chief of staff), and an Arizona insider who was a major McCain donor and is now bundling campaign checks.
This certainly seems worthy of investigation, but as I will point out, there are two sides to every story. The “land swap” involved a deal where individuals would be able to exchange rugged, undeveloped land primarily owned by Fred Ruskin and the Yavapai Ranch Limited Partnership. This property included some rare, desert woodland ecosystems including habitat for the pronghorn antelope. The land would be folded into the existing Prescott National Forest. In exchange, the owners would receive land which was more accessible and ready for development.
The controversy comes from the fact that Ruskin’s group wound up getting land valued at $120,000 per acre in exchange for land previously worth $2,000 per acre. They then turned around and handed a deal to develop 12,000 homes in this area to SunCor Development, run by Steven A. Betts who has raised a great deal of money for Senator McCain. In his defense, the McCain campaign has released answers to a series of questions on these land deals stating that there were no prior agreements between the Senator and the other parties involved.
There does not yet seem to be conclusive evidence of any sort of quid pro quo here, but since it at least provides the possible appearance of impropriety, a full investigation should begin with the results provided to us. However, as I said earlier, there are two sides to a story like this.
Such “checkerboard” land distribution arrangements are not uncommon, and I’ve observed quite a few of them over the years here in Upstate New York. (They are also commonly referred to as patchwork land deals, and have happened with the Adirondack Park here in the Empire State.) When sections of private land become “trapped” inside of sections of public parkland, problems come up on both sides. Simply put, the most efficient way to manage, patrol and protect the wilderness areas is to keep them contiguous. Anything else leads to zoning problems and dangerous situations for certain animals who may be crossing from public to private property and back again. For the owners, there are even more issues. Development of roads, utility lines and other required infrastructure can prove to be impossible when crossing park lands. Often the only reasonable solution is to fold some of the contiguous land into the park in exchange for accessible land suitable for development being given to the owners.
Further, the idea of trading land worth $2,000 for property valued at $120,000 may sound suspicious, but the true “worth” of the parklands should be measured in more than terms of hard cash. These parks belong to all of us, providing not only habitat for endangered flora and fauna, but wonderful opportunities for hikers, campers, scientists and students. Surely that has some value beyond what can be measured in hard dollars and cents for development deals.
This is an interesting story to be sure, and worthy of further investigation. But we may not want to be too quick to rush to judge Senator McCain’s involvement until we have all the details.
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7 Responses to “Two Sides to John McCain’s Land Swap Deals”
Have you noticed that both Barak Obama and McCain are going to run the same type of campaign?
Let their minions call out the other guy, dig up the trash and do the trash talking while they themselves stand back, condemn it and try to pretend to move on?
McCain is a quick study. He saw what trash talking has done to Hillary and is trying the Obama approach.
Gonna be one strange election this year.
Whether these deals are good or bad, when there is a continuing connection between someone in governemtn and loobyists or beneficiareis of legislaion,
it erodes trust in government.
The lack of trust is poisoning our well right now.
Restoring trust iis more important than the particulars of any single occurrence or legislation, IMO.
I think it unfortuante that McCain didn't consider the importance of appearances in that regard,
I have no problem with a trade that protects wild lands by trading it for something already adjacent to developed land, but in keeping with my wish to see America run more like a business, these deals should be negotiated by a tough real estate negotiator. None of us would offer an even trade for land with 120 times less value. Maybe 60 for one?
In general, the giveaway of federal lands should be a crime. Here's a little personal experience with that. My Aunt Martha had a huge wooded property in California. She allowed a logging company to harvest trees from a portion of her property. She got to dictate the manner in which it was taken (selectively) and was paid very very well for the trees they took. Meanwhile, right next door, the U.S. Forest Service was not only allowing the same company to take trees for free, the Forest Service built the roads, allowed them to clear cut it, allowed them to leave their trash and lost a huge amount of money.
That's a perfect example of managing our public resources for private gain. I know exactly how much the timber was worth, and what concessions a lumber company would make in order to get at it. But as far as our federal government is concerned, it's OK to just give our public property away, and even spend taxpayer money to facilitate the taking of our public property. Yeah, those trees are MINE, as much as anyone's. If they're gonna be offered up, then first, I want us to have a choice in the matter, and second, I want someone who works for me (say a USFS negotiator) to insist on the best possible deal we can get. To fight for it like it's his own money.
So, if McCain's deal was a shabby giveaway of public property, then may the flames of his pandering consume him. If not, then let the issue subside. But this may or may not be just dirty politics as usual (as Neocon suggests). It may or may not incite my righteous rage, depending on the details.
I'm in agreement that this should be looked at, but GD I wonder if you'd agree with me (and I think the point that Jazz was making in the penultimate paragraph) that it's pretty hard to equilibrate the actual monetary value of those two different types of property. The fact that a piece of property is landlocked within a national park means that it's commercial value is extremely low, yet it's value in filling in the missing puzzle piece to the park is quite high. Monetarily though since real estate price is based on how commercially exploitable a property is, it's hard to measure the one against the other.
I think your suggestion of having an experienced real estate broker involved is a very good one, BTW.
CS, I do agree that a key piece of a habitat we wish to preserve could have a value far greater than its commercial value, so the negotiation is critical and must be fair. This is being done all over the country with conservation easements and other protective mechanisms being negotiated according to the value to the city/county/state in question.
I was involved in fighting this legislation for 6 years, and no matter the ecological issues involved, the bottom line was that citizens wanted the full process, with environmental analysis and formalized public involvement (under Nat'l Environmental Policy Act), that was sidestepped–indeed, almost always is–in legislation.
McCain claims he listened to and worked with people on all sides–but ultimately he didn't respond to the overwhelming majority that opposed the bill. For six years. And to the point that, when he called a “town hall” meeting to mollify citizens (who'd asked for a field hearing), 600 people showed up (McCain waived the fire marshall's regulations because the h.s. gym was overflowing). 97 percent of those who were allowed to speak were against the legislation. They wanted an environmental impact statement–the same process a non-connected person who can't afford lobbyists would need to go through if they want to do an exchange with the government. Many of us will never understand his stubborn refusal to respond to that desire–he probably would be a hero in those towns (all other issues aside) had he done so.
An EIS is essential any time protected land is to be unprotected. McCain deserves for this to haunt him, as yet another example of managing public resources for private gain. If the trade is sound, why fear the EIS?