Federally Owned Land - How much is Enough?

The federal government owns about 650 million acres of natural resource lands. This represents 28% of all land in the US. If you add state owned land the percentage increases to 32%. The map above (stolen from Tom Tancredo's website!) depicts the land owned by the Federal Government - the picture is real clear. Aside from a few million acres managed by the Department of Defense, those lands are nearly all managed by four agencies, three of which are in the Department of the Interior: The most valuable lands are the 192 million acres of national forests managed by the Forest Service, which is in the Department of Agriculture; The most extensive lands are the 270 million acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) of the Department of the Interior; The most famous lands are the 80 million acres of parks, monuments, historic sites, and recreation and other areas managed by the National Park Service of the Department of the Interior; The most obscure lands are the 90 million acres of fish and wildlife refuges managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, also in the Department of the Interior. A vast majority of those lands, including more than 75 percent of the national forest acres, more than 90 percent of the national park acres, and more than 99 percent of the BLM acres, are located in the 12 western states including Alaska. This map depicts the federal government land and does a good job of showing how much of the West is owned/controlled by the US government. While almost everybody agrees that the US Government does a lousy job of land management - their increasing land acquisition program continues. I am excited about Gale Norton's cabinet appointment - we need a westerner with a states rights approach to manage this. I was in Tucson, AZ a few years ago on a 4 wheel jeep ride on federal land. The jeep driver bragged! that 92% of Arizona was owned by the state and federal governments. I told him it was a waste of perfectly good land and he got furious - it seems the politically correct view is that the US government will protect us from all the 'capitalists' who will wreck the environment.