Steven Taylor has an excellent post over at OTB on The Basics of Federal Land Ownership in the west.
Most of the western US (indeed, south-central as well, i.e., from the current border of Louisiana westward across Texas) used to be part of Mexico. East Texas became independent after the Texas Revolution of 1836 (as did, theoretically, the disputed area on the map above). After the Mexican-American War of 1848, eastern Texas, the disputed area and the rest of the blue territory became part of the US. (The remainder of Arizona was later purchased by, you guessed it, the federal government of the US from Mexico).
Yes we United States Citizens either bought the land outright or paid for wars to take it – it’s ours, all of us. Cliven Bundy is nothing more than a welfare cowboy and still would be even if he were paying his grazing fees. The average grazing fee for BLM land is $1.60 a head. It is estimated that it would cost on the average over $16.00 a head to graze them on private land. If that isn’t welfare I don’t know what is.
Steven Taylor thinks we should perhaps debate if the federal government should sell off some of this land. Why would anyone buy it when it costs 90% less to graze cattle on federal as opposed to private land? While the federal government has some marketable land much of it is economically useless. To give you an example here in Oregon we have two national forests that are next to each other. We have the Willamette National Forest that stretches for 110 miles along the western slopes of the Cascade Range in western Oregon. It consists of old growth Douglas fir and cedar making it valuable but extensive logging would also threaten the watershed that supplies 100s of thousand of people with drinking water and threaten fish habitats. Yes, they could probably sell it off but at what cost? To the east we have the Deschutes National Forest, largely juniper, lodge pole pine and sage brush, probably not a lot of potential buyers for this.
The reality is the Federal land is an economic plus for the region bringing in tourists from all over the world to enjoy the natural beauty. Former logging communities have become tourist attractions and are doing really well. My week in the woods once a year used to be the only thing that preserved my sanity when I worked in the insanity of the business world.
Needless to say I don’t have a problem with Federal land but I do have a problem with welfare cowboys.