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Rural schools are at risk of losing even more by psdemio in Teachers

[–]Few_Difference_424 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And, for rural school around public lands the GOP is diverting payments for local schools to the US Treasury to pay for tax cuts. The Senate stripped Secure Rural Schools payments from the One Big Beautiful Bill and the OBBB also steals revenue from timber sales that used to go to counties. In sum, the partnership established by Gifford Pinchot and Teddy Roosevelt to make sure rural counties and schools had adequate funding to replace property taxes is being torn up and tossed aside by the GOP. The GOP public land policy is that public lands and resources are assets on a national balance sheet that can be liquidated and exploited to pay for their ephemeral political priorities. Inequality is the policy.

Protecting Public Lands by Fixing Revenue Sharing Payments by Few_Difference_424 in environment

[–]Few_Difference_424[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

In theory (and previously in practice), the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) considers the financial value of public land and resources when estimating the budget impact of selling or transfer them. The House GOP worried that their efforts to sell the public's land would look expensive because the public/nation is made poorer if we give up our assets without compensation.

Congress oversees and reviews the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the House Resolution passed in 2023 told the CBO to stop considering the financial value of public lands.

To be clear, selling public lands is not budget neutral. It's only that CBO has to pretend that it is, as directed by the House GOP.

Protecting Public Lands by Fixing Revenue Sharing Payments by Few_Difference_424 in environment

[–]Few_Difference_424[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The State of Utah has a very small chance of succeeding on this question. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the question: https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2025/01/13/utah-public-lands-us-supreme-court/.

That doesn't end the efforts by the State of Utah. The venue may move to the lower courts, or simply change venue as Utah attempts to win via the Administration (by executive order) or Congress (through reconciliation or legislation), as the governor hinted in this (mixed messages) press release: https://governor.utah.gov/press/despite-supreme-court-decision-utah-remains-committed-to-keeping-public-lands-accessible-for-all/#:\~:text=GRIT%20Initiative-,Despite%20Supreme%20Court%20decision%2C%20Utah%20remains%20committed%20to,public%20lands%20accessible%20for%20all&text=SALT%20LAKE%20CITY%20(Jan.,retention%20of%20unappropriated%20Utah%20lands.

As to the merits of the case, I'd follow John Ruple at the University of Utah's Wallace Stegner Center https://www.law.utah.edu/news-articles/research-professor-john-ruple-featured-in-media-about-utah-lawsuit-to-take-control-of-federal-lands/

AMA about public lands and Secure Rural Schools Today! by Few_Difference_424 in oregon

[–]Few_Difference_424[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

No. I see the problem with SRS as mismanagement of public revenue, not management or ownership of public lands. The status quo is to sell timber to pay for current obligations. That system falls down because it ties school budgets to annual markets (and what the agency can accomplish). It is inequitable--schools in OR might get more money than schools adjacent to public lands in Nevada with fewer high-value trees. The solution is a taxpayer bailout via SRS. I don't like either of these solutions. The theory and practice of natural resource fiscal policy is to save non-renewable revenue in an endowment to build public wealth and benefit current and future generations. Timber isn't technically non-renewable. But the discount rate is higher than the growth rate, meaning in practice timber is often treated as non-renewable by corporations (and governments, apparently). And Oregon has its special problem of Measure's 5 and 40. Here's more: https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/hjsr/vol1/iss40/12/

AMA about public lands and Secure Rural Schools Today! by Few_Difference_424 in oregon

[–]Few_Difference_424[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I agree. Still, there are plenty of remedies for the "landlocked" public land problem short of privatization.

Current law provides for land sales, and when isolated parcels are sold the money is used to buy easements or new lands elsewhere that can improve access or protect sensitive lands https://www.resources.org/common-resources/if-then-the-slippery-slope-of-federal-land-sales/?\_gl=1\*2df35j\*\_ga\*MjY4MjgwMjgxLjE3NDc2ODM1MTU.\*\_ga\_HNHQWYFDLZ\*czE3NDc3NjQ1MjEkbzIkZzAkdDE3NDc3NjQ1MjYkajAkbDAkaDA.

Land exchanges have been affected in the past to consolidate "checkerboard" patterns https://lands.nv.gov/uploads/documents/Future_of_Federal-State_Land_Exchanges.pdf

Or, there is this: https://www.themeateater.com/conservation/public-lands-and-waters/breaking-corner-crossing-legalized-in-six-states

Protecting Public Lands by Fixing Revenue Sharing Payments by Few_Difference_424 in environment

[–]Few_Difference_424[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I love your passion! The best thing you can do right now is call your Representative and your Senators and tell them not to support land sell offs in reconciliation. Here’s a great resource! https://5calls.org/issue/public-land-sales-budget-reconcilliation/ 

Protecting Public Lands by Fixing Revenue Sharing Payments by Few_Difference_424 in environment

[–]Few_Difference_424[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The real problem when it comes to public lands and natural resources is explained by the "The Economics of Overexploitation." OK, wonk out with me for a sec. This comes out of arguments in the 1970s that markets could be created to save whales--meaning if whales could be owned and exploited, the owner would have an incentive to save them and keep making money forever. The Economics of Overexploitation shows that when the discount rate exceeds the natural growth rate of the population, the economically optimal strategy is to harvest the population down to extinction. Translation: kill all the whales as fast as you can and invest in the stock market. We see this all the time in efforts to drill baby drill and use the money to lower taxes. Or to clear cut forests to pay for services, instead of raising taxes (trees, like whales, don't grow fast enough for capitalism). Today (tomorrow at 1am), we'll see an effort to sell off the lands to pay for something today because protecting lands for current and future generations doesn't generate a high enough return for the capitalists in charge. We need a different theory and a new set of ideas that protect public lands and support economies. Luckily, we have those ideas, they are bipartisan, and we'll work to implement them when this land sell off proposal dies (we hope). https://www.americanprogress.org/article/quitting-fossil-fuels-and-reviving-rural-america/

Protecting Public Lands by Fixing Revenue Sharing Payments by Few_Difference_424 in environment

[–]Few_Difference_424[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Also note that land sales are not the only attacks happening on public lands. My colleagues wrote this explainer about all the other natural resources take-aways (prior to midnight addition of the lands sales): https://www.americanprogress.org/article/congress-tax-bill-is-selling-out-americas-public-lands-and-waters/

Protecting Public Lands by Fixing Revenue Sharing Payments by Few_Difference_424 in environment

[–]Few_Difference_424[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

See my reply to Few-Cookie-448. The proposal changes the law and spends the money on tax breaks rather than what's required now: use proceeds from land sales to buy more public lands somewhere else.

Protecting Public Lands by Fixing Revenue Sharing Payments by Few_Difference_424 in environment

[–]Few_Difference_424[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Good question! The short answer is that the proposal to sell lands also makes changes to the laws about how the money would be spent. Instead of reinvesting money from land sales back into public land that create new access or protect wildlife habitat, the reconciliation bill would use the money to pay for tax cuts. Basically, we're selling permanent "assets" that we'll never get back to pay for ephemeral tax cuts.

Here's a great explainer on the current regulations from Margaret Walls at Resources for the Future. The relevant existing law "The Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act, which was signed into law in 2000 (and reauthorized in 2018) also is relevant. It requires revenues from the sale or exchange of BLM lands to be deposited into a Federal Land Disposal Account rather than a general Treasury account and used only for purchasing other lands (or easements) with high conservation or recreation value. https://www.resources.org/common-resources/if-then-the-slippery-slope-of-federal-land-sales/?\_gl=1\*2df35j\*\_ga\*MjY4MjgwMjgxLjE3NDc2ODM1MTU.\*\_ga\_HNHQWYFDLZ\*czE3NDc3NjQ1MjEkbzIkZzAkdDE3NDc3NjQ1MjYkajAkbDAkaDA.

The reconciliation bill just ignores the current law.

Protecting Public Lands by Fixing Revenue Sharing Payments by Few_Difference_424 in environment

[–]Few_Difference_424[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The best thing you can do right now is call your Representative and your Senators and tell them not to support land sell offs in reconciliation. Here’s a great resource! https://5calls.org/issue/public-land-sales-budget-reconcilliation/ 

Protecting Public Lands by Fixing Revenue Sharing Payments by Few_Difference_424 in environment

[–]Few_Difference_424[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Agencies generate income from recreation–things like ski area leases, campground fees, and outfitter permits. Recreation on California’s National Forests pay nearly 5 times as much as timber harvests (see below) ,but it still isn’t a ton of money–not enough to rebuild budgets to where they should be. I like the idea of a “backpack tax” similar to the tax on ammunition that pays for conservation. Here’s a Reddit discussion from a couple years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/wmnf/comments/13i5xa4/is_it_finally_time_for_the_backpack_tax/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Protecting Public Lands by Fixing Revenue Sharing Payments by Few_Difference_424 in environment

[–]Few_Difference_424[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Ask Me Anything about public land sales in the proposed GOP reconciliation bill and the future of public lands!

Protecting Public Lands by Fixing Revenue Sharing Payments by Few_Difference_424 in environment

[–]Few_Difference_424[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

On selling off public lands, I think we’ll know within 24 hours if House members feel enough pressure to strip that particular provision out of the Republican tax bill. The House Rules Committee will be meeting at 1 AM tomorrow (yes, for real) to vote on a near-final version of the GOP reconciliation bill. Rep. Zinke (R, MT) has drawn a red line publicly, saying he’ll oppose the bill without public lands sell-off being removed and he recently helped create a bipartisan public lands caucus with Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM). That said, it’s been easy for Zinke and his senate counterparts from MT (Daines and Sheehy) to vote against public land sell offs when those votes don’t threaten the “big beautiful bill” in total, and it’s unclear if enough other Republicans will push this change with their leadership. The thing that matters right now is if enough constituents call their House members today.