[Op/Ed] Sell Federal land in the West

[Surlethe]

Marginal Revolution

Now is the Time for the Buffalo Commons

The Federal Government owns more than half of Oregon, Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Alaska and it owns nearly half of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming. See the map for more. It is time for a sale. Selling even some western land could raise hundreds of billions of dollars - perhaps trillions of dollars - for the Federal government at a time when the funds are badly needed and no one want to raise taxes. At the same time, a sale of western land would improve the efficiency of land allocation.

Does a sale of western lands mean reducing national parkland? No, first much of the land isn't parkland. Second, I propose a deal. The government should sell some of its most valuable land in the west and use some of the proceeds to buy low-price land in the Great Plains.

The western Great Plains are emptying of people. Some 322 of the 443 Plains counties have lost population since 1930 and a majority have lost population since 1990.

Now is the time for the Federal government to sell high-priced land in the West, use some of the proceeds to deal with current problems and use some of the proceeds to buy low-priced land in the Plains creating the world's largest nature park, The Buffalo Commons.

Hat tip to Carl Close for the pointer to the map.

This is, I think, an interesting proposition, and worthy of at least some thought. I don't know about the goal of "more efficient land use" -- a flat-out libertarian goal, with libertarian presumptions about efficiency -- but in terms of raising revenue, this actually seems like a pretty good idea at first blush. Is this a good idea? Or am I overlooking some obvious reason why it's bad?

[Sea Skimmer]

Who the fuck would buy it? Who has hundreds of billions, the mention of trillions is just a plain joke, to spend on ANYTHING, let alone empty land in a nation with a housing surplus? Most of that land is still Federal because it has nothing of value except dirt and rocks to absorb bombing range impacts. The forests areas are already national forests and we already lease out logging rights for them. Same story for mineral rights. We could sell off those chunks of land outright, but that means throwing away a long term source of revenue, as well as inviting massively destructive clear cutting.

The idea of selling off Federal land in an effort to close the deficit is not new to even this decade, and its been proposed on Congress. Its just not going to work, we would have sold the land long ago if people really wanted it.

[Sea Skimmer]

And for a better map showing the actual landed own, divided by which branch of the Feds looks after it see below.
The yellow stuff belongs to the Bureau of Land Management, the light green to the Forest Service, that’s the stuff we could really think about selling. Everything else has it not really on the table since its military, or Indian reservations, or parks or wildlife refuges ect…. Keep in mind alot of Bureau of Land Management land already has private enclaves within it, but the private tracts are usually too small to show up on anything less then like a 7000x4000 res image.

[aerius]

Who the fuck would buy it? Who has hundreds of billions, the mention of trillions is just a plain joke, to spend on ANYTHING, let alone empty land in a nation with a housing surplus?

Exactly. Might as well try and sell a certain bridge in New York or beach front property in New Mexico. Maybe the Arabs or Chinese have a few hundred billion they can spare, but do you really want foreign countries owning a nice big chunk of America? I don't even want to figure out how that would work.

[Alyrium Denryle]

No. Fuck no! State and federal trust land consists of pretty much the only undeveloped (read: not intentionally despoiled) range land in the country. In addition to our economic problems we are also in the middle of a human caused mass-extinction and if, for example, we were to sell state and federal land in Arizona, we would lose pretty much all native amphibians to cattle ranching (because they are who would buy the land, if anyone). I am patently unwilling to allow an amphibian holocaust, to sacrifice what little Nature we have left to pay the price of our own gross mismanagement. Call me a misanthrope, but it is high time that we pay our own debts.

[Kodiak]

Somehow I don't think selling the California national forests is the right solution to this crisis we're in.

[Samuel]

Why on Earth would the US need to lower the price of wood? We have a housing surplus!

What else is their to exploit on the public lands?

Honestly, raising prices to get into parks would probably raise more money.

[La Maupin]

As much as it would amuse me to own a house built into a giant redwood (seriously, I would dig the hell out of it), I SAY THEE NAY!

[CmdrWilkens]

This is just another of the ideas, and they bounce up all the time, which are the equivalent of governmental get rich schemes. if you look at them on the surface (The feds have a ton of land, they could sell it and make money) it sounds almost reasonable. When you actually dig down and look at what is really being sold and to whom you start realizing its a gigantic waste that will never amount to anything. As with most ideas that strike you as so simple that we should have done it years ago there is probably a more complex truth behind why it hasn't been done.

[Xon]

This sounds like a massive land grab which really isn't going to benfit the government or american people.

[Coyote]

Who the fuck would buy it? Who has hundreds of billions, the mention of trillions is just a plain joke, to spend on ANYTHING, let alone empty land in a nation with a housing surplus?

Oil & gas companies, mines.

[Samuel]

Who the fuck would buy it? Who has hundreds of billions, the mention of trillions is just a plain joke, to spend on ANYTHING, let alone empty land in a nation with a housing surplus?

Oil & gas companies, mines.

Except if it was a large deposit, they would have found it by now. And that since it is in the wilderness, they need to build pipes and roads and that only a small amount of land could be sold this way. I'm not seeing that making any difference whatsoever.

[CmdrWilkens]

Who the fuck would buy it? Who has hundreds of billions, the mention of trillions is just a plain joke, to spend on ANYTHING, let alone empty land in a nation with a housing surplus?

Oil & gas companies, mines.

They already lease the land they want so why would they pay more for something they already are paying for now?

[Sarevok]

If selling land was a good stop on the way to national economic recovery would not Russia have done so long ago ?

[Kanastrous]

I think that's how we wound up with Alaska.

[Samuel]

I think that's how we wound up with Alaska.

And then we found gold and oil

Never sell land to the US- you will regret it in less than a decade. They wanted to dump it because the fur trade was tapped out and they were Union allies so we couldn't say no... poor fools.

[Darth Wong]

The conservatives here in Canada had similar ideas: sell off assets in order to solve economic problems. The idea doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense; if those assets have commercial value, you'd be better off leasing them to exploiters than selling them outright. And if they don't have commercial value, then you won't get anything for them.

[Coyote]

Maybe they should just take out a subprime mortgage?