[Nmcaver] Congress rejects sale of federal lands

[Jim Evatt]

Wholesale land sales or transfers by any government agency is a woeful 
corruption of justice in every sense of the word.  The only benefit goes in 
the pockets of the buyer, usually a close friend of the politician who 
sponsors the measure, when he pays 10 cents on the dollar for the true value 
of the land.  The American public, in turn, gets the Otis treatment.  This 
scenario has been proven over, and over, and over... .  Witness for one 
example: the NM state land swap with ex-Governor Bruce King about six years 
ago, when King received highly prized and immediately subdividable 
properties outlying Santa Fe, trading essentially worthless land for it. 
Promoters and developers do not get wealthy (too often at taxpayer expense!) 
by making bad deals.  They get wealthy by manipulating the law for their own 
personal gain.

Some rare and extremely well thought out land sales and swaps can sometimes 
benefit both sides.  (The elimination of Platt National Park in Oklahoma in 
the 60's comes to mind.)  However, wholesale elimination of lands that 
belong to the American public will only benefit the buyers, in this case 
probably Bush's personal friends and financial supporters.

Kudos to Sen. Craig Thomas and all those who effectively defeated this 
proposed American travesty.  We do not need another Enron, especially in the 
Federal Government.

Jim Evatt

---- Original Message ----- 
From: <Mike_Bilbo at nm.blm.gov>
To: <Mike_Bilbo at nm.blm.gov>
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 10:37 AM
Subject: Fw: Congress rejects sale of federal lands


>
> Date: 6/30/2006 7:23:38 AM
> Subject: Lawmakers dump land sale measures;
> Casper Star Tribune 6/30
>
> Lawmakers dump land sale measures
>
> By NOELLE STRAUB
> Star-Tribune Washington bureau Friday, June 30, 2006
>
> WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers declared two Bush administration proposals to sell
> off hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land all but dead Thursday
> after a Senate committee passed a key spending bill that excluded the
> provisions, as the U.S. House had done earlier.
>
> President Bush's proposed 2007 budget would have sold Forest Service lands
> to fund a rural schools and counties program and Bureau of Land 
> Management
> acres to fund government operations and reduce the debt.  But the Senate
> Appropriations Committee approved a bill funding the Interior Department
> and the Forest Service for next year that does not contain the land sale
> measures.  A spokesman for Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., who chairs the
> Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, said he did not expect any attempts
> to revive the measures.  "Chairman Burns has said the land sale proposal 
> is
> dead in the water and it is not in the Interior appropriations bill which
> was reported out of committee today," said spokesman Matt Mackowiak. "We
> have no indication these two proposals will show up down the road."  In
> May, the House passed its version of the spending bill, also without the
> land sale proposals.  Western lawmakers had fought for months against the
> proposal to sell off the forest lands and use the $800 million in revenue
> to fund the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act.
>
> Congress must still find a way to reauthorize and fund the act, which is
> set to expire at the end of the year.  Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., 
> introduced
> a bill in March with one alternate funding plan. The Baucus bill would
> withhold a portion of federal payments to contractors in lieu of taxes.
> Under the provision, 3 percent of payments by the federal government to
> federal contractors for goods and services would be withheld and put in a
> trust fund that would pay for the Rural Schools Act. The federal 
> government
> currently does not withhold taxes when it pays government contractors, and
> critics say a large number of those contractors never pay their federal
> taxes.
>
> Senate Republican leaders and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne also have
> promised to search for funding sources other than sales of federal lands.
> The act provides transitional assistance over five years to rural counties
> affected by declining revenue from timber harvests on federal lands. The
> Forest Service
> has drawn up a list of about 300,000 potentially salable acres. But
> Agriculture Department officials have said 150,000 to 175,000 of those
> acres likely
> would suffice to raise the needed funds. In Montana, 13,948 acres made the
> list, as did 17,619 acres in Wyoming.  "Selling off something we will lose
> forever, in exchange for something we could pay for by other, more prudent
> means, is simply irresponsible," said Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo. "The
> decision to defeat a proposal to sell 17,000 acres of Forest Service land
> was an easy one to make."
>
> The administration sent proposed legislation to Congress on the national
> forest sales but never made it to that stage with a less concrete plan to
> sell Bureau of Land Management property and use 70 percent of the proceeds
> to reduce the debt. Baucus estimated the agency would auction roughly $180
> million in land over five years and more than $350 million in land over 
> the
> next decade.  "We can declare victory on the BLM land sale proposal,"
> Baucus said in a statement. "It's clear to me the administration realized
> that was a very bad idea and they've backed off. This is a major victory
> for public land access in Montana and across the West."
>
>
> http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2006/06/30/news/wyoming/6b082be7c0
> 4b9c5f8725719d0001ff19.txt
>
>