I know, right?!
We don’t want it controlled by the feds. They’ll use the land as a secret base to wage thier war on Christmas. It’ll be much better off in the hands of that uranium mining company. Those guys will give us all the jobs because uranium will trickle down the grand escalator staircase tax free!!! And also, the second amendment.

I think you need to reread his article and his comments in the following section, that is not what he advocated. You might want to change your title, shows your extreme bias in the discussion and no one is going to want to talk to you with a flat earther mentality..

Re-soures:
We need more Uranium for more warheads. We also need more Christmas trees and wood for our Ikea disposable furniture and the nice open furnace in our livingroom.

Re-human locomotion:
We need to be able to drive everywhere.
We ride and run indoors or along major roads anyway.

Dim-Sum:
We crazy monkeys do not really care about our environment or the planet.
We only care about ourselves and our perceived needs and wants.

"The only way to protect ourselves from our own madness and insanity is Sarcasm".

This Thread belongs into the Lavender Room.

Wrong forum?

Feds took that land from the natives by force. So you are saying they should give it back to the tribes? Oh no actually that's not what you are saying..... ;)

Have you looked at the Federal land in Nevada? What would you do with it? Ever heard of the dust bowl? BLM is more than happy to lease the land for mineral rights. The land can't be grazed effectively. Cattle over-graze the area very quickly and then you are left with woody underbrush that isn't suitable habitat for anything but a camel.

Ya the Feds could sell it to the highest bidder. It wouldn't be worth much and then tax payers would get stuck with the cleanup costs after some dumb-ass goes bankrupt. Wyoming is the perfect example. A billion or two for coal reclamation. It costs thousands of dollars a piece to cap and seal the 4000 thousand abandoned coal-bed methane wells. When world demand for oil slows down in the mid-2020s, I suspect there will be thousands of oil wells from the fracking boom that get abandoned and those cost roughly 10 times as much to seal as the coal-bed methane wells.

http://trib.com/...42-6556405eed53.html

http://trib.com/...88-77326b7471d2.html


I suggest you look up the Dunning Kruger effect.

Sometimes you should steer clear of Federal land in Nevada...

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DFL > DNF > DNS

Did you disagree with Dan in the comments section of his piece? Dan made some comments to clarify himself. I know there are people who are hard to reason with here; yet, Dan is not like that. Though if you didn't disagree there publicly I can understand why because you will get flaming irrational responses from the leftists.

Lavender room material?

Maybe Dan could avoid lavender room opinion pieces on his front page; yet, it is his site...

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

I "thought" the beauty of ST was..............you didn't need to pick a political side.

Not even a slippery slope. It's a cliff.

I think Dan is saying that, regarding open space, private entities don't always have the best interests of society at heart. And private entities don't have the best interests of human beings that love the outdoors, with some triathletes being a subset of that group.

Have you ever heard of the parable of "the tragedy of the commons"?

When I was ignorant, I was not a fan of US and calif. zoning and land use laws (I used to live in calif).

But, take just one trip to a non-tourist Mexican city of a decent size. You will come back and kiss every zoning law on the books ...

No kidding.

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Some clarification....


https://www.facebook.com/...os/1674734039230596/

Hello Cookiebuilder and All,

I think you misunderstood .... I think he said Slowtwitch should control 90 percent of California land.

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

It may not be 90 percent overall. But Utah does have the highest percentage of federal land in the USA. Following what Teddy Roosevelt did is a wonderful cause. It does not mean it should be used as the only justification for what is no different than eminent domain.

this forum is just fine. this is square inside what we do. laws protecting cyclists on the road are politically charged, and are just fine here in this forum. likewise the push-pull on when and whether we'll be able to run and ride our bikes offroad.

i'm thankful for the OP that he brought this topic here. let's have at it. just, let's have at it in a way that is not reflexively political. if everyone can handle that.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

So who is best to decide what to do with a state's land? The people who live in the state or a politician in DC making decisions to score brownie points with a wing of his party, which is the minority party in the state affected?

Escalante could have a fantastic system of MTB trails. Instead we are stuck riding on dirt roads because Sierra Club elitists don't want their horses spooked. The everyman has a mountain bike. Who the fuck owns a horse?

You'd rather that land be owned by a company that mines it, turns it into a cesspool (see WV) and then walks away? That sounds much better. The people who live in the state aren't the ones making decisions...

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The point is, ladies and gentleman, that speed, for lack of a better word, is good. Speed is right, Speed works. Speed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

Incorrect. Nevada has the highest percentage. Utah is a distant 2nd.

And why shouldn't these western states have a high percentage of federal land? They were 100% federal land before they became states (and 100% indian country before that).

I'm not a member, but very, very, very very few Sierra club members are trail horse owners or riders ... far more are MTB riders ...

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DarkSpeedWorks.com.....Reviews.....Insta.....Facebook
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I really don't know much about any of this, ( I hoped someone smarter than me would jump on and back me up haha) I just thought it would be a fun thread. I think alot of utah is frustrated at the previous presidents making large areas of land monuments, without much input from us frankly kinda of last minute in obamas case. We would love them kept open for everyone, but also used to make money in some areas. the feds are so overkill the way they run things, and then so hard to change if we want to do more with a area and monument status does not mean everyone can enjoy it.

i'll agree with you if you ask about the nonsensical view that MTB creates less havoc on a train than do horses. who the fuck owns a horse? i own 4. my horses do much more harm on the trails than my MTB do (i ride both on the same trails), and horses aren't native either (not even my "wild" mustangs).

but to the point, i didn't know you were familiar with escalante. you have to earn it, but after the long drive you're rewarded with a world class restaurant in the middle of nowhere (hell's backbone grill) and terrific groad riding north and south of hwy 12.

i'm not fathoming your beef, tho. i don't care who the custodian of the land is: county, state, fed. i don't care if it's natl forest, blm, monument. i don't see the need to drill on it, or to mine uranium. i just want access to it and i HAVE access to it now, for cycling. i want it preserved. before it was a monument it was checkered with oil leases. if you're familiar with GSE you know how spectacular it is. no reason to drill or mine there.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Looks like in California the issue is taken care of, as all the public land goes up in flames.

Should make it easier to privatize as it is not gonna be pretty anymore to ride mtb or hike through for the immediate future.

Reminds me of the accidental burning down of the Amazon Rain Forest which conveniently created new settling and farmland.

What a nightmare.

And now the mining companies don't need to keep a fund to clean up pollution after the mine is abandoned.

https://lasvegassun.com/...p-rule-after-indust/

So buy the land, mine it, turn it into a wastedump and walkaway. When dams break or wastewater pollutes the ground water the people responsible for it can't be touched.

Cute, but strangely the fires don't seem to care much whether they're burning public or private land. You'd better go properly indoctrinate them in your ideology.

Wow.

I'm sure they'll be good stewardesses of the land though...right?

to me, this one is a pretty good case for whether people can have a civil discussion. if one of the parties had in its platform whether puppies should or shouldn't be subject to cruelty and abuse, could a discussion of this necessarily result in reflexive partisanship?

here we have a pretty simple question: should we have the freedom to roam? is this an inherent right? in the scandinavian countries there is an inherent right to roam. the "freedom to roam", "right to roam", "everyman's right" is a well established point of discussion and, to me, sits right up there with the freedom of expression. why isn't this in our bill of rights? probably because our founding fathers never contemplated a day when this would be an issue. you want to roam? turn left. plenty of roaming that way.

there are many things we can disagree on, as men and women of goodwill, and we can still be friends, neighbors, brothers in sport. there is really only one thing on which we must agree: the freedom to roam. this is a bedrock ethic on which we must agree. if you (not the "you" to whom i'm addressing, but whomever you are) can't agree with me on this, then, yes, you should read elsewhere. slowtwitch isn't your place. we are always going to be pushing, leaning forward on the freedom to roam platform and you'll simply be frustrated if you remain here.

now, then, how to ensure this freedom to roam? scandinavia ensures this, without the need to create public lands, as we do here. the UK is wrestling with this. other countries do this well or less well. but here his what it comes down to:

1. you as a private citizen can own vast tracts of land, but you must allow access across it. by law. those who pass through it must honor your land in various ways. note: hunting is very likely not something you are allowed to do on someone else's private land. so, if you're a hunter, think twice before you choose this option. this is scandinavia.

2. lands held in the public trust. this is model the U.S. has chosen. so, how do you do this?

we ought to be able to have a discussion about this. what i am adamant about are the three Ps: Protection, Preservation, Public access. i am convinced - there is over-flipping-whelming evidence! - that rolling back Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante is all about the one E - Extraction - and not about the 3 Ps.

if anyone thinks this is a states rights case, fine. show me the way the state of utah should do this. if you can, then i'll support it wholeheartedly. i don't see that as of today. but i'm eager to see it.

in just the southwest parks - bryce and zion - visitors fork over more than $500 million annually, supporting directly about 7,500 jobs. this is less than the grand canyon's total. this does not include the southeast's parks: capital reef, arches, canyonlands. utah rocks. or, utah's rocks rock. california is where my heart is; but utah is where my imagination is. many utahns felt likewise during the establishment of their existing parks back in the early 1900s.

tell me YOUR plan (whomever you are) to keep burr trail road, and hole in the rock road, looking exactly the way they do now, with access remaining open, and let's talk about that plan, if it's something other than a natl monument designation. is there enough elasticity in your mind (whomever you are) to have this discussion? because there's enough elasticity in mine.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I'm not arguing you as I'm with Wallace Stegner on the issue, ""National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst."

Just expanding the scope of "national parks" to more broadly cover public lands preserved for recreational use and just preserved in general .

The rest of the world took our cue - as in so many great things we've done - and there are now public lands all over the world preserving the best of what the earth has to offer in terms of natural environment.

But for some reason we've taken the notion to make this a political game drawn along the usual, silly left vs. right trope. Which is unfortunate.

I couldn't get past your number 1. I'm an avid hunter, but I'm for landowners having the right to restrict basically any damn thing they want to restrict on land they paid their hard-earned money for.

absolutely agree with you. i'd like to think we have an opportunity - here on this site, in this forum community - to buck that trend and show others that a civil, thoughtful, helpful, creative, problem-solving discussion among intelligent and motivated people might spring up.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

in that case, you'd better then carefully consider option #2. because option #1 is what much of the rest of the world has. or option #0, which is that you have no freedom to roam, and you have no public lands to roam in.

option #2 is what we have chosen in the U.S.

about 3 weeks ago i finished a run from a trailhead to which i drove. while driving home i picked up a lost and stranded hunter who, with rifle of course, emerged from the natl forest in which i was running. i gave him a ride back to his base of operation, to meet up with his other 2 hunting buddies. we used the same forest. the only restrictions he faced were those common to hunters: the weapon used; the season; the nature of the animal (species, size, etc.); and that he shoot the animal, not me.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I have no issues with the US Gov't owning land.......except that I think they own way too much of it. I think public land is great (I'd hunt public land, if I didn't have private land to hunt. It's also over an hour's drive to hunt public land where I live).

My issue is with the notion of government mandating what others can do on MY land. I don't think we'll reach an agreement on this one.

I just spent a couple days hunting a state forest in my home state of Minnesota. The particular forest I hunted has no motor vehicle access, all other forms of recreation are welcome. I hiked in 3 miles each day, the only other foot prints encountered were, deer, coyote, bobcat, wolf, snowshoe hare... It was amazing to spend time in a place so far removed from the modern world only 1.5 hours from the twin cities.

Sadly I don't think people see the value in various governing bodies owning these lands, and they are completely under used resources. One of our societies best assets is public land available for our recreation. When I lived in Texas, it was 100% pay to play. No hunting access, no mountain biking, nothing without having the money to pay someone for access to their land, that isn't the frontier spirit of America.

I think the National Monument designation can be too restrictive to recreational use, but I don't believe of any entity besides the BLM that could manage such large tracts of land and maintain public access. Even Utah State Trust lands are not 100% open to the public. So what is the correct designation for these lands? I don't know, but I hope we can keep them open to the public.

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Pactimo brand ambassador, ask me about promo codes

Dude, what part of making America great again are you struggling with here?


Seriously, this is a significant problem near where I live... many miles of stream poisoned forever (most likely, at least certainly for the rest of my lifetime and probably my kids as well) by abandoned mine leachings. Some of the worst are Superfund sites, which only means that the Feds recognize them as being the worst of the worst, except there's essentially no funding for cleanup so they just sit and fester along with all the smaller ones that don't even make the list and get ignored entirely. Meanwhile, the companies that profited from those mining leases are free to move on and rape the next hillside somewhere else.

Scotland has freedom to roam,
http://www.outdooraccess-scotland.com/
it's glorious..

but fishing and hunting are entirely private. Any such requires permission and fees. and the law is hardly complex, no not at all,
http://www.flyfish-scotland.com/scotslaw.htm

I didn't start hunting until we emigrated to the USA - in South Africa, all hunting is private and expensive, only rich US tourists can afford to hunt in Africa. So I'm in love with having an option #2, public lands open to all.

Destroying public lands by resigning them to private enterprise is disastrous for hunting and fishing and roamers.. 'land of multiple uses' is a hideous euphemism. If one use of the land involves cutting down all the trees and filling the water with poisons and excavating all the mountains, then there isn't much use left for anyone else. Here in CO many of the rivers have been poisoned by defunct mining companies who have taken their profits and walked. When the EPA tries to clean up the poisons, it gets sued for damages, since the mining companies have long since ceased to exist and there's noone else to sue - so taxpayer money gets wasted in multiple ways, cleanup, lawsuits, etc.

as a Sierra Club member, having belonged to chapters in NC, CA, and CO, I have never yet met a member who owns horses.. everyone has a MTB though.

https://www.backcountryhunters.org/

Ah, so at least you got yours, and fuck the peons... Maybe it'll end up like the cradle of Atlantic salmon fishing in Scotland, where it's strictly a sport for the wealthy because there's hardly any public access left for the masses and none of the riff-raff can afford the private streamside leases.

As for YOUR land, what happens to the air & water after it leaves your land and moves downstream/downwind if it becomes a hazard to your neighbors? Does the gov't not have a stake in what you do on privately-owned land on behalf of the public, as it sure as hell affects others? Whenever I hear someone bitch about zoning laws, I wonder what they'd have to say about a porn shop opening up across the street from their kids elementary school. Hey, it's just capitalism, right? As long as people are buying what they're selling, the Market has spoken...

Peons? lol....

I hunt where it's convenient. I ride my SXS to all my hunting spots. What I said was....if I didn't private land to hunt, I'd gladly hunt public land. It's just not convenient for me to do so, HERE.

I don't have issues with environmental regulations ............to a certain point. Force me to allow public use of my land? Nope. Imminent domain? Most always.....nope.

Anyone that thinks the "government knows best" how to manage what is rightfully mine..........well, we're likely not going to see eye to eye.

Doug,

I want to give you a hug (not meant as a micro aggression, or "inappropriate") :-|

Seriously though, I spend a bunch of time on public land in MT attempting to fill my freezer with free range hormone free Elk, deer, antelope and various upland birds.

I've been lucky to miss the environmental messes that I know can and do happen. I also am aware that logging; either selective or small clear cuts done properly actually enhance habitat for wildlife. An artificially mature (aka where fires and/or logging have been eliminated) forest supports little wildlife.

Attempting to look on the bright side...
a) Brian Zinke is an AVID outdoorsman and westerner, and
b) Both monuments (BE and GSE) still exist - they weren't completely wiped out. I assume the rolled back lands go back to BLM which is still under federal jurisdiction. i.e., those lands don't magically become private. And, the administration of those lands may actually be de facto the same as they were a week or two ago.

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I saw this on a white board in a window box at my daughters middle school...
List of what life owes you:
1. __________
2. __________
3. __________

You're sidestepping the issue. You have private land to hunt, so you are... fortunate. The debate here is about the destruction/ removal of public land. Imagine all the public land being privatized. Then imagine you don't have your private land to hunt. Now you're stuck with, yes, the peons you laughed about. Without public land they'd have no hunting anywhere, "convenient" or not. Would you be fine in that situation, or would you prefer there was land held in the public trust that you could access for hunting, and fishing, and riding, and running, and camping, and whatever else you might want to do? Or are those activities strictly the right of those rich enough to avoid the large tracts of land they require?

I also find that people who don't have issues with environmental regulations "to a point" really do have issues with effective environmental regulations. And you have no choice about eminent domain. That's the point of it. You don't get to say "nope".

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The point is, ladies and gentleman, that speed, for lack of a better word, is good. Speed is right, Speed works. Speed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

Ronald Reagan

What do you think of this map? What state do you live in?

Yet Reagan, the original anti-regulation warrior, signed into law the Coastal Barrier Resources Act which covers 273 million acres and strongly regulates against new private or public development on coastal barriers.

He also signed into law the California Wilderness Act of 1984, which designated over 3 million acres in California as wilderness.

During his time as governor Reagan made horse packing ventures in the Sierras and it forever influenced his actions as governor and President. He saved the John Muir Trail, which is a crown jewel of the goddamned world. (though I'm biased here, per my handle). Though he did do a lot of work allowing "multi-use" of public lands, often friendly to industry.

So ideological aphorisms are cute, but seldom reflect reality. Sadly Reagan's quote, intended more as a humorous warning encouraging skepticism to government solutions, has become a fundamentalist warcry encouraging reflexive "drown the gubmint" responses to what used to be considered core government functions.

He was the best! Glad you thought so, also.

Not the best, but I sure do have nostalgia for the 80's GOP.

Hello nc452010 and All,

Put me down as in favor of my government (which represents the people) ownership (stewardship) of existing public lands.

I am in favor of my California Constitution provision for providing public access to my beaches.

I will grant you that government ownership of some parks and public land is not perfect ...... but I prefer it to private, or corporate, or foreign ownership.

As we see more and more wealth concentrated in a smaller percentage of Americans .... and population increasing ...... availability and public access to wilderness lands, parks, and beach access become all the more important.

http://www.latimes.com/...-20170630-story.html

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

I live in Ohio. I'd love to have more public land for recreation in our state.

They tore down my public grade school last week. Six of the happiest and most valuable years of my life. My public school PE teacher in junior high inspired me to lead an athletic life. I sent him a postcard from Kona when I qualified 25 years later, thanking him for what he taught me. I'm certainly glad they were there to help.

I'm a big fan of #1, but in my cynical moments, I don't think we, by which I mean Today's US, is capable of respecting each other enough to pull it off.

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Eliot
blog thing - strava thing

Thank you for posting that. It was helpful to watch.

Yup. You can hit that after coming down Hogsback on the million dollar road. Go right and then hit the dirt road to Wolverine Canyon with all the petrified wood at the entrance. From there you can run down to the river and then come back up through Little Death Hollow and then over to the Wolverine trailhead. It's a great loop.


The proper way to handle this is a negotiation between feds and state, not legacy seeking by a high handed politician in DC who didn't even have the guts to come to Utah to make his announcement; instead he stood in Arizona. I would rather have the land not in control of zealots who equate mountain bikes to motorcycles and ATVs. I want to mountain bike on something other than a dirt road. I want trails long enough for multi-day tours. White Rim is awesome but it's one long day on a 4x4 road.

General reply and long, but you posted the map and the quote.

The government quote is somewhat true of everyone until you need/want something from the gov't. Whether it be storm aid, promises of invigorating up a dying industry, social security, medicare, etc. Or access to public lands. Or cleaning up a private site that was left when the company went bankrupt or decided they were moving. Or driving down a pot holed riddled road. Or when your upstream neighbor has a bigger straw than you and takes out so much water that you have none. These are all real examples of hating the government, but wanting the help of the government and the list goes on. Disclaimer, I work for a governmental agency, so I see both sides of the coin. These are my thoughts of growing up outdoorsy in the 1.9% state.

I live in the 1.9% state. What I think of that map for hunting is that it's an expensive proposition to hunt (deer) if you don't have land of your own or a friend with land in the 1.9% state. We have a public hunts program, but it's more geared towards bird and small game hunting. There are drawn big game hunts, some of those are on private lands with agreements with TPWD.

What I also think about the 1.9% state having lived 3 summers in a 48.1% state and visited and trained in several of the 35%+ states is that the public lands are a big draw for outdoor activities. I think that more people would enjoy the outdoors whether it be hiking, running, MTBing, bird watching, horseback riding, hunting or whatever if there were more public lands available. I think that the rural/city divide would be smaller.

I think that conservation is inherently conservative, but that it is now a distinctly 'liberal' cause. I'm pretty sure that 30-50 years ago if I told you that I hunted or sent nearly 1,000 rounds downrange this year, it would have said little to nothing about my politics. If I tell you that now, it generally points one direction. I think that there are situations where environmentalism has gone too far. We can't mountain bike in an awesome area of Austin because of a bird that uses mainly old growth cedar for their nesting.

I also think that private industry has largely failed in upholding their ends of the bargain as well for stewardship. Grumpier.Mike posted two good links about what can and does happen.

What does being an effective steward look like? Which is more abusive? The government setting aside (owning) the land for public use (the Austin preserve seems like over reach), or leasing/selling for and opening to mining or extraction. Will the company be on the hook for capping the wells when done and cleaning up the pits and ponds? Or does that area just cease to be useful when they are done? Should there be grazing limits or rotated grazing so that an area properly recovers.

What is "up to a point"? Add something other than nope, I've got mine.

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Brandon Marsh - Website | @BrandonMarshTX | RokaSports | 1stEndurance | ATC Bikeshop |

You're very welcome. I got a lot from it as well. It seems like a typical US over reaction to a matter the they know little about and don't care to research before squealing.

Outside reposted this today. It's from May 2017.

https://www.outsideonline.com/2184491/how-mountain-biking-saving-small-town-usa


It looks like it took the State (gov't), IMBA, and lots of volunteers to make it happen. But yeah something like this would be nice.

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Brandon Marsh - Website | @BrandonMarshTX | RokaSports | 1stEndurance | ATC Bikeshop |

Wayne National Forest in SE Ohio announced a new mountain bike trail this month - https://www.fs.usda.gov/...ts/?cid=FSEPRD566108

Cuyuna is awesome. I am from up here, but lived in your 1.9% state for a few years, it sucked hard.

Open wild spaces are freeing, my state owns and manages so much land and water for me it is great. Sure, they make mistakes at times, but they do their best to ensure me and my fellow Minnesotans retain access to the lakes and land that make this place great.

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Pactimo brand ambassador, ask me about promo codes

Please, I’m curious, what exactly did that clarify for you? I found the segment to be tremendously misleading and it seemed like the intent was not so much to educate but to reinforce stereotypes and the preconceived notions of his viewers. I would genuinely like to know what you learned, specifically.

I feel really sorry for all those people who live east of the Rockies. They simply don't have the tremendous opportunities to enjoy the natural wonder of the world that we have out here in the west.

 

And why shouldn't these western states have a high percentage of federal land? They were 100% federal land before they became states (and 100% indian country before that).[/quote]
Great point! The original settlers received their land a from the Feds by way of the Homestead Act, and now many of their descendants cry foul that the Feds still hold land. I'm pretty sure if the Government wanted to reenact the Homestead Act to help populate the more of the west, they would cry that the liberals in Washington are creating another government giveaway, while sitting in their homes watching Hannity on their Federal Government issued land.

It clarified that the alarmist misinformation espoused by many including Patagonia are terribly incorrect.As mentioned in other articles, the secretary (Zinke) is an avid outdoorsman and it unlikely he would go against his interests in this matter. All to do about nothing......

Dumples wrote:

I feel really sorry for all those people who live east of the Rockies. They simply don't have the tremendous opportunities to enjoy the natural wonder of the world that we have out here in the west.

Clearly you've never been to upstate NY then or New England. Surprisingly no one has mentioned the Adirondacks, which is the largest public "park" in the nation - not Federally owned and has a ton of commercial activity, and somehow it is not an apocalyptic wasteland.

"Created in 1892 as one of the first Forever Wild Forest Preserves in the nation, the Adirondack Park is a unique wilderness area. At 6 million acres, it is the largest publicly protected area in the contiguous United States. The state of New York owns approximately 2.6 million acres, while the remaining 3.4 million acres are devoted to forestry, agriculture and open space recreation. The Adirondack Park is not a National Park - there's no fee to enter and the park doesn't close at night, nor is it a state park, a common misconception. It's also the largest National Historic Landmark, covering an area larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Glacier and the Great Smokies National Parks combined."

http://visitadirondacks.com/first-time-visitors/faqs

I think the discussion has gone a little off track - the point of the thread, I think, was to discourage Federal ownership of vast tracks of land, not discouraging public ownership AT ALL. Our country was founded as a constitutional republic with power mainly vested in the states with limited power assigned to the Federal Government - surely not as a landlord dictating what each local authority wants to do with the land. That's the beauty of local public ownership. If your state/city turns an area into a mining wasteland you are free to move to another state that respects the land, and your tax dollars with it.

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Strava

OK. So from that entire monologue the new clarity that you walked away with was that a hyperbolic ad intended to draw attention to an issue was perhaps not as literal as Rush Limbaugh would like and that Zinke loves public land and therefore would never do anything to harm it?

To your newfound clarity, here are the counterpoints

The permanent protections on the land that the Administration withdrew constitute a taking of sorts. The citizens of the United States had certain assurances with respect to those public lands which were withdrawn unilaterally and perhaps illegally by the administration. As simply as I can put it; The protected land was taken and replaced with unprotected land. To many people, and presumably including the folks at Patagonia, this unprotected land is of less valuable and so they/we lost something of value.

Really though, when Limbaugh singles out Patagonia “from New York to San Francisco” he’s just dog whistling to his fans and what he’s really saying is “look at these big city liberal elites trying to take your land and screw you over.” The whole thing plays right into his narrative of the simple folk in the heartland being relentlessly aggrieved by some coastal bogey man.

With respect to Zinke being an outdoorsman who wouldn’t act against his own interest. Do you think he might have an ulterior motive for wanting to depict himself that way? Shouldn’t you judge him on his actions not his words? In his “review” of Bears Ears the guy solicited input from natural resource extraction companies almost exclusively. He needed them to give him the plausible reasons to rescind the National Monument status. It took years and years of review from many stakeholders considering the biological and botanical, historical, archeological, tribal, and environmental and economic factors before Bears Ears received NM status—I know that doesn’t fit with the narrative of Obama’s slipping it in in the dead of night but thats the truth. Zinke determined that extraction industry interests held more weight than all of that and he did it in a matter of a few months. Despite evidence showing that economic, environmental and cultural benefits outweighed extraction industry benefits he went with the special interests who just happened to be the guys who financed the administration. Go figure.

What else you got? I thought there was a lot of stuff in there that was misleading, provided without context or outright false. I’m so confused that you thought Limbaugh provided clarity on any of the issues. What specific “alarmist misinformation” did it clarify for you?Since I’m probably someone you would categorize as an alarmist misinformer, It would be great to have the opportunity to explain where I’m coming from!

It's not Limbaugh. How closely did you actually watch if you couldn't pick that up?

My bad. Since I rarely watch them don’t know what any of those guys look like. I did watch that video though and I’m prepared to discuss the issues with you. Please replace “Limbaugh” in my post with “Glen Beck” if that helps. The incorrect name doesn’t change anything about my post.

Here's a New York Times article on land ownership. It seems that a lot of the noise over fed ownership is overblown by people who just plain "hate the guberm'nt" And as it pointed out by the article it would cost the states a ton of money to take over management.why-the-government-owns-so-much-land-in-the-west.html

Well Slowman has clarified that he doesn't really care which government entity - Fed, state, or local - regulates the land. Just that the protections for public benefit are in place and stable.



One of those powers assigned to the Federal government was regulation of Federal land. Article 4, Section 3, Clause 2: "The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States..." So until the Federal government actually sells the land, it's clearly Constitutionally empowered to do what it wants with the land, pursuant to laws passed by Congress (like the Antiquities Act of 1906). Doesn't matter what state the land is in. It's Federal land.




Eff that. I'd prefer to use my legal right to vote, lobby, sue, or whine on the Internet to effect political change to either reverse that situation or prevent it in the first place. Dealing with crown jewels of U.S. territory like you're choosing between Arby's and Denny's isn't appropriate in my mind.

I understand that it's constitutional. I'm just arguing that they should return the land to the states/cities.



What do you think is more effective - attending local council meetings and/or bringing local litigation to effect change, or trying to influence the fate of the parks on a national level? I would argue that your voice is insignificant in the latter and is subject to the whims of the executive branch.

I provided evidence that a blend of local public and private ownership can effectively protect the largest wilderness reserve in the U.S (Adirondacks). I haven't seen any evidence that this couldn't work elsewhere.

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Strava

I would argue that they should auction off the "grazing" land to private buyers (who would pay what it is worth) and those buyers then can lease the land to the farmers. Why are our tax dollars going to administration costs for land no one wants? Leave the "conservation" land alone, if that is what residents want, but having the federal government act as a landlord for grazing cattle is ridiculous.

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Strava

trail wrote:

Return? I think you mean relinquish/sell, since I believe in most cases the Federal government was the original owner. Louisiana purchase, war spoils from Mexico, etc. Of course it did a bunch of this through the homesteading acts, and mostly just kept the bits no one wanted at the time.

Semantics much? Fine, they should relinquish it to the states.

Quote:

I provided evidence that a blend of local public and private ownership can effectively protect the largest wilderness reserve in the U.S (Adirondacks). I haven't seen any evidence that this couldn't work elsewhere.

I explicitly said I was against the FEDERAL government holding land. Nothing in your statement above approaches that argument.



Is [sic] *is* adorable what you West Coast folks call a "park" (" [The Adirondacks are] also the largest National Historic Landmark, covering an area larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Glacier and the Great Smokies National Parks combined.")

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Strava

Bzzzzzzzttt! Not true. And it's not even second. It just barely makes the podium.


See that little word "contiguous"? In this context, it means what Alaskans call the Lower 48, where even the largest of your puny little parks is less than half the size of our largest. Wrangell-Saint Elias for the win! :-)

Dan, I'm about as Libertarian as they come and I still support the preservation of our parks and monuments. Not only because I enjoy SBR through them.

The question really becomes who the best steward of the land is, and will continue to provide us access to "roam". My argument is that this steward is not the Federal Govt. When you give one man, or one small body, the power to create and destroy landmarks and parks with the stroke of a pen, you don't encourage sustainability.

My solution would be to make it economically unattractive for drilling/mining/forestry/whatever to occur on the land. Pool resources and allow a non-profit with a Harvard-sized endowment run the parks (probably, more efficiently) with some local zoning regulations. I provided an example of the Adirondacks which is a mix of private and public land with some regulation (and had a few strawman arguments thrown my way in the process). I'm sure 99% of the people here will disagree with me and reply with some nightmarish, dystopian scenario that could theoretical occur if we don't have the Fed babysitting the land but there ARE examples where humans have collectively decided to preserve the land without some authoritative body pulling the strings.

I do agree that my comment was a bit of a strawman so I will take it back and offer the above as a possible solution. But not to worry - it will probably never come to fruition - instead, you're going to see a continual flip-flop of positions over the next few decades depending on who inhabits Washington.

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Strava

Fine - you got me there. I concede to your tangential argument. Now back to the actual point of the discussion.

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Strava

i would argue that the right to roam, and being libertarian, is easy to reconcile. they both fit nicely under the heading of freedom.

i might agree with you in theory as to whom is the better steward (between natl govt, public-private partnership, local govt), i just know that in *practice* the natl govt system has worked very well. is your problem with the federal govt's ownership a point of principle? or is it that you think it's shown to be a bad or failed system in practice? because, i live right next door to a national forest, which i enjoy almost daily. i haven't seen any practical problem. i'm 60 years old, and i'm still awaiting the collapse of the natl park or natl forest system. it still seems fine to me. it's not that i think it's the only workable system. but i haven't experienced any evidence of problems.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I was trying to be a bit humorous - sorry if that escaped you.

But if you think that getting basic facts correct is "tangential" then you are just plain wrong. Any discussion of federal land ownership that ignores Alaska is woefully incomplete.