The better way to facilitate federal land management in the west is to give the western states the management authority.  Don’t just move the bureaucrats out of Washington, D.C.  Move the Lands! I hope I did the hyperlink on the quote  correctly.

President-Elect Trump recently said he wants to move the bureaucracy of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from Washington, D.C. to the West.  I have a better idea: instead of moving the bureaucrats...move the land!

There are hundreds of million acres of lands across the western states managed by the BLM.  It can take years, if not decades, for the federal agency to approve activities on those lands.  Our country needs alternative management strategies and direction.

Unfortunately, many groups, with the help of federal bureaucrats, have successfully schemed, through gridlock and other means, for their own single-use ends.  And this makes the economic and efficient management of the public lands for the benefit of the people almost impossible. 

History tells us that in many cases, the western states could not manage those public lands.  They did not have the infrastructure to do that.  It is no longer the case.  The western states have the ability now to manage lands for wildlife habitat, hunting and fishing, forests and fire, grazing, recreation, environment and waterways, roads, and minerals.  The people within those states know the lands within their borders and the communities that depend upon the use of those lands better than bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.  As President-Elect Trump stated, “I believe states, communities and private land owners know best how to manage their own resources.”

Here is what the Trump administration and the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency can do.  Draft and support legislation that gives the state legislatures the option to receive those BLM lands and mineral estates into state ownership and management or the option to leave them with the federal government.  This is not without a historical precedent, although in an opposite direction.  The 1911 Weeks Act allowed the U.S. Forest Service to acquire lands in the eastern states, but only upon approval of the state legislatures.  Just reverse the process.  The western states are ready and able to manage those lands.  Let them do it!

There are so many ways this will streamline land management decisions, including eliminating the federal actions that trigger federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis requirements.  And it will reduce the federal bureaucracy at the national, state, and local levels.

Image via Pixabay.