Hello team!

This is a letter to the editor that Commissioner Dan Happel in MT recently submitted to his local papers.  Please read it and see if you can get it submitted to your local paper asap.  And then see what you can do to write your OWN and send it to us to help leverage your voice throughout our states!  

Thanks!  

Letter to the Editor- Oct 13, 2014

                  The responsible management of public land is finally being debated on the public stage.  Many of our federally controlled lands are being mismanaged for a number of reasons; pointless lawsuits and a lack of federal funding being at the top of the list.  The sad truth is that more is being spent defending against lawsuits than land management, wasting our tax dollars and making sensible federal management almost impossible.  Many of the same groups opposed to transfer of excess public lands to the states are busy lobbying for reduced public access through expanded ESA and EPA regulations at the federal level and expansion of designated wilderness areas.  There is a particular irony about such obvious hypocrisy. 

            Less than two years ago when the debt ceiling debate raged, our national parks and public lands were closed and put off limits to force acquiescence to expanding out of control spending.  When several Governors tried to reopen them with state employees, they were forced to stand down at gunpoint.  Is it really about access?

            I have sat through much of this debate as a county commissioner, and I have never heard any proponent of transfer to the State suggest that the land should be “sold to the highest bidder” as has been suggested by opponents. 

“The way to stop debate is by attacking with the most outrageous lies imaginable and repeat them until people believe them to be true”.  Joseph Goebbels – Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, 1943 

            `As a landowner representative of the Montana Forest Legacy Committee, I am amazed at the effort to purchase more conservation easements on private land, create more Wilderness areas, and expand public land holdings at a time when we are borrowing nearly 43 cents of every discretionary dollar we spend.  This is especially troubling when we don’t seem to have the money to manage what we already have. 

            If the economics of public lands transfer truly is a bad idea, let’s have an open and truly informed public debate with real economics and solid facts about costs and benefits discussed at all levels.  Let’s look at the money pit that has become federally managed lands and see if there is a way to change that dynamic. 

Dan Happel / Commissioner – MT, Madison District 2

Local verses D.C. Public Lands Management?  Take our short survey!