Federal land transfers: How the West was won back?

It’s actually pretty easy to imagine that if given the opportunity, the state of Montana could better manage some national forest lands if they were transferred to become state trust lands. What’s harder to imagine is that actually happening.

Nevertheless, there is a growing, well-intended effort to explore the possibilities for Western states that have huge swaths of federal land to assume management of some of those lands. And it should be looked into, along with ways that states could more effectively assume other areas of federal responsibility.

In Montana, the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation has a constitutional mission to maximize revenues from school trust lands — a pretty straightforward mission that hasn’t resulted in the pillaging of state forests, mainly because there are state and federal environmental laws that still must be complied with.

But the DNRC manages 599,000 forest acres far more productively than the Forest Service manages 17.1 million acres in Montana under its multiple use mission. State timber sales generate an average of $8.9 million per year, while the Forest Service generates an average of just $1.6 million a year in Montana, at a net loss when cost inputs are considered.

It truly is astonishing that Sanders and Lincoln counties have the highest unemployment and poverty rates in the state when they are rich in precious metals and have the most productive forests in the state. Problem is, most of that land is under federal management, and over time, federal timber sales in the region have declined to a point where the timber industry has nearly vanished.

Critics of the federal-to-state land transfer concept contend that the state is ill-prepared for the task, and that the state could not afford the bills that could arise from fire suppression during big fire years. They say the state could be put in a position of having to sell off public lands to meet its obligations.

Those are claims that indeed sound alarming, but only if it’s put in the context of the state suddenly being responsible for fire suppression on millions of acres of formerly federal lands. That’s not what’s really being discussed in Montana or other Western states.

What’s more likely is that only the most select and suitable lands — excluding wilderness areas, national parks and roadless areas — would be proposed for transfer, and millions of acres would remain under federal management.

Or would they? A U.S. House committee has passed legislation to sell millions of acres of federal lands in the West. Who is to say our federal government, with nearly $18 trillion in staggering debt, won’t itself someday be in a position of having to sell land?

But as we said, it’s difficult to imagine states actually acquiring federal lands, no matter how much sense it might make. Land transfers would require an act of Congress that is dominated by senators and representatives from states that have just a fraction of the percentage of federal lands that Western states have. Those lawmakers may not be so sympathetic to the wishes of Western states. And there would be fierce push back, both politically and legally, from environmental groups and citizens who simply favor retaining federal lands.

There is clearly a steep climb ahead for transfer advocates, but they are beginning to make a case for the concept.

Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.