{"id":67132,"date":"2016-07-20T01:41:55","date_gmt":"2016-07-20T07:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gop-platform-pushes-federal-land-transfers\/"},"modified":"2016-07-20T07:41:55","modified_gmt":"2016-07-20T07:41:55","slug":"gop-platform-pushes-federal-land-transfers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gop-platform-pushes-federal-land-transfers\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP platform pushes federal land transfers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"GOP
GOP lawmakers generally support transferring federal lands to state control. That could include lands like Doe Mountain in Arizona\u2019s Coconino National Forest.<\/span>National Forest Service<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Republican Party is drafting its 2016 platform, which represents a hard swerve to the right on social issues. But other parts of its stance have long been consistent \u2013 most notably, its push for transferring federal lands to state control.<\/p>\n

Party platforms are not binding, but they do demonstrate party priorities \u2013 what the base thinks are the most important issues and beliefs. And they\u2019re important in steering politicians. Political scientist Gerald Pomper determined decades ago that lawmakers usually do cast votes that accord with platform positions, and that in presidential election years, about two-thirds of platform promises get fulfilled in some form during the following four years.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s platform, which will be finalized at the upcoming GOP convention, includes a demand that the government \u201cimmediately pass universal legislation providing the timely and orderly mechanism requiring the federal government to convey certain federally controlled public lands to the states,\u201d reports Oregon Public Broadcasting. That\u2019s consistent with the ideas presented in the 2012 version, which suggested privatizing some of those lands:<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress should reconsider whether parts of the federal government\u2019s enormous landholdings and control of water in the West could be better used for ranching, mining, or forestry through private ownership\u2026 The enduring truth is that people best protect what they own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many in the GOP have long been on the side of the Sagebrush Rebels; as far back as 1984, the party\u2019s platform called for decreasing federal holdings and increasing privatization: \u201cWith due recognition of the needs of the federal government and mindful of environmental, recreational, and national defense needs, we believe the sale of some surplus land will increase productivity and increase State and local tax bases. It will also unleash the creative talents of free enterprise in defense of resource and environmental protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

By 1992, the wording in the platform more explicitly called for decreasing federal holdings and encouraging private development: \u201cWe also seek to reduce the amount of land owned or controlled by the government, especially in the western States. \u2026 In order to provide an economic base for the people of the West, a public-private cooperative partnership on these lands for multiple use in an environmentally sound manner is imperative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Transfer champions such as Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, are up for re-election this year, and if they win their races, as they likely will, they\u2019ll doubtless make such measures a central part of their legislative efforts. And the transfer drumbeat has been getting louder in many Western counties. Even as some explicitly reject the idea of putting states in charge of public lands, others are signing up with the American Lands Council, which works to further the goal of \u201creturning\u201d lands to states.<\/p>\n

While the GOP\u2019s public-lands platform isn\u2019t anything new, it\u2019s one more indication of a growing schism between two fundamentally different views of how federal lands should be handled. The Democrats\u2019 2016 platform contains this language:<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a nation, we need policies and investments that will keep America\u2019s public lands public, strengthen protections for our natural and cultural resources, increase access to parks and public lands for all Americans, protect species and wildlife, and harness the immense economic and social potential of our public lands and waters.\u201d<\/p>\n

While dozens of bills and other measures requiring federal land transfers have been introduced over the years, none have yet become law, and probably won\u2019t as long as a Democrat sits in the White House. But conservative lawmakers will continue pushing for the disposal of federal lands \u2013 and may even succeed, should the national political landscape shift further right.<\/p>\n

This article orginally was published on hcn.org<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A shifting political landscape could open the door to \u2018returning\u2019 lands to states<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[3586,21,13,122,1304],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-67132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arizona","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-monument-and-heritage-site","tag-republican-party"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67132"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=67132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}