The Obama administration plans to have the federal government acquire millions of acres of private land even though it can’t afford to maintain the land it already owns.
H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), points out that the federal government already owns about one-third of the land in the United States, and in some states it owns more than half. But millions of acres of government-owned land are lost to wildfires largely due to federal mismanagement.
The country’s national parks suffer from a $9 billion-plus backlog for repairs, maintenance and improvements, Burnett notes. “Our country was never meant to be a crown colony or federal estate, and in this economy, it hardly seems right to increase funding to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which will be used to purchase private lands,” Burnett says.
Acquiring more land is a “bad idea,” and instead federal lands could be sold to the states, nonprofit groups or private companies, which could use them to generate revenue and help reduce the deficit, the NCPA suggests.
And rather than have the Land and Water Conservation Fund spend money to buy new lands, the federal government could use the funds to improve and maintain the lands it already owns.
Said Burnett: “This would be a win-win for the public, the environment, and the federal Treasury.”
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