Reform the USA - Sell Most Federal Lands
A Long Overdue Measure for Making the Western States Better
(All the colored land is Federally owned, except the Red - that land is owned by Indian tribes)
The Federal and State governments own too much land in the USA. This needs to end.
When you look at a map of land ownership by the federal government you see that there is a radical different between the the states east of the Mississippi and the states of the Rocky Mountains and west to the Pacific coast.
The Eastern states, on average, have less than 5% of their land owned by the federal government. Nearly all the land in the eastern states is privately owned and it can bought and sold relatively easily based on economic need or changes in population location.
The Western states, on average, have 40% of their land owned by the federal government. In some western states, the percentage is absurdly high.
Nevada: 80% — Utah: 63% — Idaho: 62% — Alaska: 61%
Oregon: 53% — Wyoming: 48% — California: 46%
Arizona: 42% — Colorado: 36% — New Mexico: 34%
Washington: 28.5% — Montana: 29% — Hawaii**: 20.2%
Here are the Eastern & Central states with the most federal ownership:
Florida: 11% — Nebraska: 10% — Minnesota: 10% — West Virginia: 8%
All the remaining states are at 5% and less.
The reason why this is true is based on the history of the USA but the reason no longer makes any sense. It is immoral and un-American to treat the eastern states differently simply because they were added to the USA 50 or 75 years before the Western states. In California’s case it was admitted to the Union in 1850 (46% of the land is still federally owned) while Minnesota was added eight years later (1858) yet only 10% of that state is still federally owned land.
No doubt at one time it made sense to keep much of the land in newly settled states under federal control to prevent a small number of people from buying up a majority of the land. But those day are long gone.
The Federal Government could reduce is debt to zero by selling the non-park, non- military federal land. It should be done. It is just and proper that the land of the USA should be privately owned by the people of the USA.
My proposal:
Homesteading. Some federal land should be open to homesteading. Meaning, if you build a house or develop the land for ten years, you get the property, free.
The rest of the land should go up for auction. Only American citizens can participate in this auction. No individual can buy more than 500 acres of land. The land purchased at auction can only be sold 1% at a time for the next 50 years. After that, any amount can be sold.
Any citizen will have a private right of a tort action against a person who acquires any of the federal land illegally, with penalties including monetary loss to the guilty party and a reversion of the land to be auctioned again.
No state shall be allowed to own more than 10% of the land within the state. States themselves are required to sell excess land (or offer it to homesteading).
At the end of this 50 year process, the federal government’s land holdings will be massively reduced, largely eliminating the need for the Bureau of Land Management or the National Forests Department. The States will have much less land under their control with a greatly reduced need to state land management agencies.
To Summarize
It is immoral and unjust for the the US federal government to own more than 10% of the Western state’s land area when it owns less than 10% in all of the Eastern States. Federal ownership of western state land is relic from the 1850s and it must end.
By selling most of the federal land, I predict the government can retire its entire national debt.
By selling and homesteading the western state land, the western states will have a chance to grow their populations, and become more economically successful.