PrintOctober 26, 2013
The Shutdown in the West
The feds closed the doors on private properties two weeks ago. The message was: this is ours, we own it, and we can lock you out. This was a surprise in the East but not in the West. The rural West has put up with arbitrary regulations of vast tracts of land for over a century. The shutdown of national parks and monuments goes along with the their tendency on all federal land in the West to arbitrarily turn off the water, stop access to various areas, and curtail economic activities frowned on by urbanites. If you don't like it, they will see you in court.
The Federal Government owns 653,299,090 acres of land, 29% of all the land in the United States. Washington D.C. put a lock on the whole thing. 54% of all government land is in the Western states, or to put it another way, the feds own 47% of the West. By contrast, the government owns only 0.24% of the land in the entire Northeast, which explains the media's lack of interest in government land management. Alaska accounts for another...(Read Full Article)
