Maybe some estates for wealthy people. Great views of the remaining federal land.
Yeah, we need to speak up and not wait to see what they do.
Topic
Fire sale of BLM and NFS lands
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- This topic has 40 replies, 15 voices, and was last updated 10 months, 1 week ago by
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It is seems the lands selected here were done in the same fashion as all the other actions and government cuts being done. No logical or common sense used. The land nearby me in AZ has no minerals, oil, water, and access other than hike or horse is virtually impossible. This apparent random process leaves me to think of two scenarios. 1. Those making these decisions are sitting at a desk in Washington with absolutely no clue. 2. The hundreds of millions of acres of land offered is just to camouflage the few million acres of desirable land that the insiders (donors) have already chosen to purchase.
They bill the land sell as supplying land for affordable housing. First of all, you have to have blind faith that they’re telling the absolute truth. Secondly, even if they are speaking the truth, what safeguards are in place to prevent exploitation? Alas, I do highly suspect that it’s a plot to divide us between those who support affordable housing over public lands or visa verse. An either or situation leaving out a third possibility that we can achieve both simultaneously.
Over the years, I’ve dealt with any number of large corporations getting involved in my line of business–wine. They always come in aggressively, explaining how they are smarter than anyone else, and how they are going to revolutionize the industry. And they always come in when the economy points to an upswing.
But they always have to report quarterly earnings–which means they have to show a profit every single quarter, That’s fine while things are on the upswing, but the wine industry has cyclical downtowns–it’s griculture, for god’s sake–and everyone knows it. When those occur, the big corporations find themselves having to explain to shareholders why they aren’t making money.
To solve the problem, they start selling off physical assets. Vineyards get sold, and grapes are now purchased from growers. Wineries get sold, winemakers are fired, and production is “consolidated” so that many wine brands are now all made in the same facility, sometimes by the same winemaker. See? that’s smart!
After a few years of this, people note that the wines are not very good, and all taste the same. They stop buying the wines. And the corporations now have no assets and no markets. And the profits still aren’t there.
An example of this is Inglenook, where it has taken Francis Ford Coppola nearly thirty years to undo to damage to the brand that Heublein did in ten years. And it has cost him millions and millions of dollars to do it.
There is a clear parallel here to what is proposed for our federal lands. Sell off what isn’t “making a profit” to cover the operating deficit, When we run out of money, we still are operating at a deficit, and we no longer have the federal lands. The only problem is, we don’t have a Francis Ford Coppola for every park or forest in the USA to spend thirty years fixing the damage.
The only people who could do that are you and me. And I’d rather save the federal lands now, please.
I live in Bend Oregon where there is a dearth of affordable housing. The city and county are working hard to codify ADUs, cottages, 4-plexes, and affordable housing in new developments all within our urban boundaries. The current housing that interfaces with National Forest land is multi-million dollar estates. I don’t see how new housing on forest land can possibly be affordable.
We are a year round outdoor recreation community with an economy that depends on hunting, fishing, hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, gravel biking and floating/kayaking the rivers and lakes. Hundreds of thousands of wilderness areas are within 30 minutes, but all are accessed by the National Forest. Oh, and we rely on the mountains for our water.
This land grab like the one attempted by McCarthy in the 50’s will devastate Central Oregon and many other mountain towns in the western states.
Contact the Senators and Representatives of all 50 states demanding removal of this poorly written sham of a bill. Many of our visitors do not live here. This public land belongs to all of us.
good point Paul
“But they always have to report quarterly earnings–which means they have to show a profit every single quarter”
I think that explains a lot of the poor outcomes in the economy in general. Leading to public dissatisfaction. Leading to this selling off of public land proposal.
Cris @ HikingGuy posts this fairly balanced summary:
I heard that this is being removed from the bill.
You can also start worrying about this—ending the roadless regulations. Turning back environmental protections every day.
Guess the proposal got removed or will be modified, for now. Success!
Yeah! Looks like someone noticed that no one is going to go miles outside a developed area, and build affordable or low income housing.
Spot on Ray J.
I call moose poop to the “affordable housing” canard.
If I’m reading correctly, the land sale was removed from the bill based on a technical rule about what can be included in a reconciliation bill, not because the legislators decided to abandon it. So I expect we will see this again in the future.
The Bill will probably be back at some point. Here’s a review of the recent changes, keep fighing!
https://wessiler.substack.com/p/mike-lee-reintroduces-smaller-public
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