WSF Statement on Public Lands in Budget Reconciliation

The Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF) recently released a statement on the disposal of federal public lands, which is available here.

Consistent with this statement, WSF opposed the House Natural Resources Committee reconciliation bill that included directions to sell and exchange public land and is pleased that this was stricken from the bill before Senate voting.   

Budget reconciliation is not the way these lands should be sold, transferred or exchanged, especially since it excludes public input.  We also recognize that currently, the proper ways of sales and exchanges that ensure a conservation benefit as criteria to move forward are not working as well as they should. WSF supports Congress fixing the right ways for evaluating and deciding on sales and exchanges that create net benefits for the public land system and adjacent communities.

 
As budget reconciliation was the wrong approach, the right approaches are:  agency (mainly Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service) decisions under existing laws that allow for public input; and, bills advanced through Congress under routine procedures.  Still, there are problems with both.  Agency decisions take too long and rarely carry through to a decision.  Routine bills in Congress are proposed in every session by members of many states.  They compete for the limited time available for debate and voting.  As a result, usually, they all bog down. It’s been nearly 10 years since the last significant lands bill was enacted.
 
The Wild Sheep Foundation supports the public land system and asks that Congress fix the regular ways of adjusting public land boundaries for net benefits to the public estate.