Episode 8: Public Land Use with Matt Lee-Ashley ((Center for American Progress)

Matt Lee-Ashley, Director of Public Lands at the Center for American Progress, talks to us about public land use and a recent report called The Disappearing West. This report found every 2.5 minutes, the American West loses a football field worth of natural area to human development. Whoa! Check out the interactive website www.disappearingwest.org for more cool facts from the report. This episode explores how the government came to own so much land and how the land is being used.

Learn more about environmental law and policy here!

Episode Intro Notes

What We’ll Cover

How much public land is there?
Different kinds of public lands
How did the government come to own all of this land?
Different uses of our public lands
Why is it important that the government own this land?

How much public land is there? (1)

The federal government owns roughly 640 million acres. That’s about 28% of all the land in the US of A.

This land ownership is concentrated in the west. Specifically, of the 11 coterminous western states, the federal government owns 46.9%. Specifically in Nevada, the federal government owns close to 85% of the land! East of the Mississippi, the federal government owns just 4% of the land. As we’ll get into, this has led to some controversy in the west.

While there is a little debate over if the Constitution allows the federal government to own and manage land rather than simply dispose of it, most find the authority in the Property Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says “The Congress shall have the power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States” (2).

How did the government come to own all this land? (6)

At first the U.S. government’s attitude towards public land ownership was give it away rather than acquire it. As we expanded west, we purchased or took land from other countries and the Native Americans. We transferred a lot of it to states and individuals via homesteading and land grants.

Example. Over 61 million acres of public lands in the west was given to veterans of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 (12).

Example of homesteading is the Homesteading Act of 1862 (7). The new law established a three-fold homestead acquisition process: filing an application, improving the land, and filing for deed of title. Any U.S. citizen, or intended citizen, who had never borne arms against the U.S. Government could file an application and lay claim to 160 acres of surveyed Government land. For the next 5 years, the homesteader had to live on the land and improve it by building a 12-by-14 dwelling and growing crops. After 5 years, the homesteader could file for his patent (or deed of title) by submitting proof of residency and the required improvements to a local land office.

Some land speculators took advantage of a legislative loophole caused when those drafting the law's language failed to specify whether the 12-by-14 dwelling was to be built in feet or inches. This is really funny because when I wrote 12-by-14 above I said to myself, wait, is that in feet or inches and assumed it must be feet.

Eventually over 1.6 million homestead applications would be processed and 10% of federal land transferred.

Finally repealed in the 1976 Federal Land and Policy Management Act.

The disposal system worked in the midwest, but in the west, a combination of politics and geography slowed things down.

The mountainous, arid, and difficult-to-land was not attractive to farmers. This land was good for grazing, but the grazers needed more than 160 acres.

As politicians became concerned about corruption in previous land sales and conservation started to become a more important policy goal in the 20th century, federal land management shifted away from sales.

Listeners may recall in early 2016 a national wildlife refuge being occupied by some people upset with how the federal government manages land in the west.

Note that hundreds of thousands of acres of land has been sold to individuals by the federal government in the past 25 years. Also, federal government charges less than states and private landholders for grazing (8). It charges $1.69 per animal unit month (means how much it would cost to feed one cow and one calf for one month). Private landholders often charge $20 AUM. But, that federal permit includes costs like maintaining water and fences that permits from private folks does not. Still, the U.S. is not breaking even in managing the rangelands. The fees cover ⅙ the cost of aministering the permits. In other words, the shortfall works out to 38 cents for every man, woman, and child.

Kinds of Public Lands

People often think of national parks first, but there are many different types of public lands. The different types are managed by four different federal agencies: National Park Service; Bureau of Land Management; Fish and Wildlife Service; and the U.S. Forest Service (plus Dept of Defense administers close to 15 million acres of military bases, training lands, etc.).

National Park System doesn’t just include national parks. The National Park System covers more than 84 million acres and is comprised of 410 sites with 28 different designations. These include 128 historical parks or sites, 81 national monuments, 59 national parks, 25 battlefields or military parks, 19 preserves, 18 recreation areas, 10 seashores, four parkways, four lakeshores, and two reserves (3).

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve is the largest park with 13.2 million acres. It’s in where else but Alaska. Saw pictures. Stunning! Only two dirt roads in and 200 miles from closest commercial airport. The smallest site is the Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial at 0.02 acres. It’s in Philly. Kosciuszko was a Polish military engineer who helped us during the American Revolution.

The BLM manages the most land at 247.3 million acres (also administers 700 million acres of subsurface mineral rights as there can be different owners of surface and subsurface rights but we’re not going to get into all of that…).

The U.S. Forest Service manages 192.9 million acres. Most of that is national forests.

The Fish and Wildlife Service manages 89.1 million acres (so note that NPS manages the smallest amount even though that’s probably the one we are most aware of). Most of this land is meant to conserve and protect animals and plants. Example would be our National Wildlife Refuge System.

Our boy Teddy Roosevelt designated Florida’s Pelican Island as the first national wildlife refuge. There are now 560 refuges. You can visit these refuges, as 47 million people do each year (4) and (5).

The way these lands are managed varies. National Forests originally authorized to protect lands, preserve water flows, and provide timber. The Multiple-Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960 added more uses including recreation, livestock grazing, and wildlife and fish habitat. The Act says that these multiple uses must be managed in a “harmonious and coordinated” manner “in the combination that will best meet the needs of the American people.” Thanks for the specific direction Congress….not.

BLM also has a multiple use, sustained yield mandate in the The Federal Land Policy and Management Act. This Act defines multiple use as “the management of the public lands and their various resource values so that they are utilized in the combination that will best meet the present and future needs of the American people.”

The National Park Service is directed to “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." So more like conservation and recreation than sustainable yield from these lands. This is from the Organic Act of 1916.

The FWS has a primary-use mission--to conserve plants and animals. Other uses (recreation, timber cutting, etc.) are only permitted to the extent that they are compatible with the species’ needs.

Wilderness. The Wilderness Act of 1964 created a way for federal lands to be designated as wildenress. These lands get our highest protection. No roads, vehicles, or permanent structures are allowed in designated wilderness (9). There is about 110 million acres in the National Wilderness Preservation System, which is about 5% of the United States.

Great definition of wilderness in the act: “An area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” Can you imagine today’s Congress passing legislation with language like that? Pssh. These people must have been playing hackeysack on the mall in between writing environmental laws, haha.

Different Uses of Public Lands

Of course recreation is a major component.

But there’s also oil and gas development.

In the west, only 12% of lands in the west are protected from development. Of the more than 250 million acres overseen by BLM in the west, the oil and gas industry can drill on 9 out of 10 acres (10).

40% of all U.S. coal is mined on federal lands. President Obama issued a pause on coal leasing in January 2016 as the Department of the Interior is looking on how to modernize that leasing program, as it has been updated in 30 years (11). Coal companies were paying an effective royalty rate of 5%, which is far less than the 18.75% royalty charged for offshore oil and gas. Other uses include timber.

Why is this important?

Land owned by the government means that we all own it, and that it is used and managed in a way to benefit us all. What most benefits us all and what percent of the land should be devoted to the various uses is still up for debate. As discussed, even Congress left it open for most public land saying eh, open it for multiple uses in a way that benefits everybody. But at its core, land owned by the public means it benefits us all. It means land is not in a way that maximizes profits or is subject to the whim of one person or a small group. We can’t just create more land so public land preserves a finite resource and as a result, we get protected species, recreation opportunities, and stunning beauty.

Public land means some of it is protected. Certainly private groups have helped conserve land. For example, Ducks Unlimited, a group started by sportsmen to protect waterfowl, has conserved more than 13 million acres. But keeping land public to ensure it is accessible to all so that they can have the psychological benefits we discussed in the Nature Deficit Disorder and experience nature and grow as people is something that we must vigorously defend.

Honestly, I think public land is why I got into environmental law. I found incredibly interesting that we had decided to set aside lands for our general benefit and then had to go about setting rules for its use so we all benefited. It’s the kind of long-run, non-selfish thinking that all too often is so absent in human decision-making.

There can be many stakeholders when it comes to land ownership, stewardship, and ultimately, development. When land is owned by the government on behalf of the public, management groups act on the best interests of the public.

Protecting as park space, etc need to build here

When land is held privately, the chief decision-driving force tends to be money, and developing the land is often the best way to cash in.

This is what the Disappearing West article explores (beautifully and in an engaging way). When millions of acres of land are acted upon by millions of different special interests, there's no way we can expect a cohesive, unified approach to the management of our open space
The Disappearing West is showing us that, as population continues to move west, more and more of this land is “cashed in” for development, which has huge consequences for wildlife and urban sprawl

What Teddy Roosevelt said about the Grand Canyon. “Leave it as it is. You cannot improve upon it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.” Protected public lands helps reminds us of our roots (pun intended) and the power of nature.