|
In today's New York Times there appeared an Editorial under the headline "Auctioning Off Nevada". The piece, which is appended, ended with these words.
[Nevadans have every right to have boccie and tennis courts. But it is not clear why the federal government should sell off chunks of the nation to pay for them.]
I wish to repeat a warning originally shared on 2/28/05 with the Wild Wilderness network in an e-mail message titled "Using SNPLMA as a model for liquidating the commons."
Here it is. Please take it to heart. What is at stake is larger than merely selling off Nevada.
[I wonder what folks in the conservation community were thinking about when they willingly stepped onto the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act slippery slope? I wonder what they think today, when they read articles such as the one pasted below?
And just imagine.... this same SNPLMA MODEL is being touted as a cornerstone within the American Recreation Coalition's newly proposed "Federal Recreation Policy Act". The idea, of course, is to sell off unwanted public lands and use the money to fund new recreation development.
I wonder how many conservation and non-motorized recreation groups will be stepping onto THAT particular slippery slope. I hope the answer is none.]
The ARC's Federal Recreation Policy Act has, so far, gone nowhere. That,
however, does not mean it is going nowhere.
Scott
--- begin quoted ---
New York Times Editorial
Published: December 9, 2007
Auctioning Off Nevada
As cornucopias go, it is hard to top what has been happening in Nevada.
Local governments have been cashing in on the sale of federal lands to
spare their taxpayers the tab for a raft of amenities that include
parks and shooting ranges. That’s right: the federal government has
auctioned off thousands of acres in the last decade under an unusual
law that channels most of the proceeds into an account set aside for
projects in Nevada.
It is federal spending that comes earmarked for environmental projects.
But much of the money has paid for a wide array of urban and suburban
projects: a county shooting park, picnic grounds, subsidies for
schoolbooks and teachers’ salaries, expenses that local governments
elsewhere pay for with local taxes or bond issues. The obvious question
is why federal lands should be tapped like some desert A.T.M., forcing
taxpayers in the 49 other states to subsidize the booming regional
growth around Las Vegas.
A report in The Times last week by Jesse McKinley and Griffin Palmer
analyzed nearly $3 billion in land sales that have occurred since
Nevada’s Congressional delegation steered the law to passage in 1998.
One of the main rationales for the program was to acquire and protect
environmentally sensitive tracts of land in private hands, but only 15
cents of every dollar has gone toward such projects.
For Nevada, the program is win-win-win. Local governments get cash to
spend. Developers gain access at public auctions to acreage long
considered off limits. Residents get new amenities without footing the
bill. The big losers are taxpayers everywhere else, few of whom even
know about this one-state bonanza.
The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, a Democrat who just happens to
be from Nevada, is a big supporter of the program. Other Congressional
delegations, who know a good thing when they see it, are intent on
getting similar programs for their own states. Cooler heads should take
a close look at whether the law is becoming more about boondoggles than
about conservation. Nevadans have every right to have boccie and tennis
courts. But it is not clear why the federal government should sell off
chunks of the nation to pay for them.
|
- Privatization 
