Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Could management shift to states even if public lands remain federally owned?

Gold Butte National Monument

Steve Marcus

Rock formations are shown Feb. 23 in the Little Finland area of Gold Butte National Monument. Designated by then-President Barack Obama, the 300,000-acre reserve in Southern Nevada is a flashpoint of political tension over federal environmental policy.

At a Lake Tahoe fundraiser in August, Elko County Commissioner Demar Dahl — a leader in the movement to transfer federal land to the states — met privately with then-candidate Donald Trump. According to a story Dahl has told many times since then, he asked Trump how he would feel operating a 10-floor hotel in which eight floors were owned by a bureaucracy 2,500 miles away.

“He caught right on,” Dahl said.

This is how Dahl sees Nevada’s position relative to the federal government, which owns more than 85 percent of the state. “So many of the rules and regulations we have to live by are made so far away in Washington by people who are not really familiar with our problems out here,” he said.

In late April, Dahl flew to Washington, D.C., to discuss the future of public lands with President Trump’s staff, after the administration invited him to a signing ceremony for an executive order on education. The political landscape around the land issue had changed since August. Trump’s administration had veered away from the pro-transfer position included in the Republican Party’s platform.

“I’m adamantly opposed to the sale or transfer of public lands,” Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said at an Outdoor Industry Association event that same week in April. “So is my boss.”

That position, which has hardened in recent weeks, has forced land-transfer advocates in the West to look at more modest proposals for giving states more control over federal lands. At the meeting in April, for instance, Dahl suggested transferring more management responsibilities to the states.

When asked about such proposals, a spokesperson for the Interior Department said in an email that Zinke “believes the federal government needs to be a better manager and a better neighbor and that bureaus need to work more closely with one another and local and state governments on local land management policy.” She added: “What works for Seattle doesn’t exactly work for Henderson.”

State legislators across the West introduced bills this year encouraging Congress to revisit the idea of wholesale land transfers — ceding large parcels of land to the states, which could then sell the land for development and extraction, or manage it for the public. Those bills face an uphill battle.

The federal government, which owns the majority of land in Nevada, Oregon and Utah, sits on nearly 47 percent of all Western land. It’s a reality that has existed since statehood, when the federal government ceded land to newly formed states looking to raise revenue for public services. Nonetheless, it’s a development that remains a thorn in the side of land-transfer advocates, who argue that local jurisdictions should make choices about how their land is managed.

Politicians supporting the land-transfer movement, though, have had difficulty making gains, facing headwinds from both sides of the partisan spectrum.

Conservationists and sporting groups believe that transferring federal land could constrict space for hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation. It’s likely that these groups would oppose Dahl’s suggestion — to transfer management, not the land, to the states.

“That gets to be a very slippery slope,” said Alex Boian, vice president of governmental relations for the Outdoor Industry Association. “It’s not a real compromise.”

A spokesperson for Montana-based Backcountry Hunters and Anglers echoed Boian’s concern. She too called such proposals a slippery slope and likened the protection of public lands to a “second Second Amendment.”

The groups flexed their political muscle this year with a successful social media campaign that urged Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, to withdraw a bill to sell 3.3 million acres of federal land. “It’s the first shot across the bow,” Land Tawney, executive director for Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, told Outside Magazine in February. “We don’t have the money, but we have the people.”

At a recent lunch meeting with members of the Congressional Western Caucus, Zinke reiterated his opposition to divesting federal land, U.S. Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., said in an interview with The Sunday.

Zinke declined to discuss whether there would be any exceptions, said Amodei, who introduced legislation in 2014 that would have transferred about 7.5 million acres of federal land to Nevada.

“That’s not in the cards at this time,” Amodei said.

Amodei instead plans to prioritize smaller gains for the land-transfer movement. He stressed the importance of monitoring land use around Yucca Mountain, funding for the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act and proposed expansions of Air Force facilities at Nellis and Fallon. He said he expected the administration to be open to land bills that address county-by-county issues.

While Dahl was in D.C., Trump signed a directive ordering Zinke to review national monument designations dating back to the Clinton administration. The request asked the Interior Department to look at downsizing or eliminating any recent monuments declared through presidential powers. .

The American Lands Council, a group that Dahl co-founded, applauded the order. But the group said on its website: “reforms need to go much further.”

Join the Discussion:

Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

Full comments policy