Cheney vote on federal public lands irks sportsmen
Wyoming sportsmen's groups are outraged by a recent vote by U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney that would make it easier to transfer federal public lands to states.
The House Republican Conference approved last week a 43-page measure that changed a number of rules for how Congress works.
Congressional Budget Office rules require the federal government to tally the money earned on federal land – from energy extraction to logging and grazing – and subtract that from expected cash flow in the event of a sale or transfer, according to the Washington Post.
But the new rules say land transfers shall be budget-neutral, which essentially means the loss of revenue could not be factored into a sale, transfer or exchange of land.
Read more: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming/cheney-vote-on-federal-public-lands-irks-sportsmen/article_e422ec7e-11c7-5257-9fe3-67775aefb2e1.html
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which thrive predominantly by extractive industry from mining and ranching, fuel extraction - oil, natural gas, coal, some timber harvest and in recent decades tourism. Much of the state is public lands (NF, BLM, NP, and military as well as a couple Indian Reservations, the largest is Wind River (about the size of YNP). Public lands in the US are owned by we the people (citizens) and administered by the federal government in order to ensure that they are manged for the benefit of the citizens in perpetuity.
Congress decides on their funding, for decades they have been cutting funds when all these administrating agencies need more personnel and operational funds... look at the increase in visitors to the parks recently, it's insane to think that a small group of employees can manage over 4 million people who have no idea where they are, what is required just to keep themselves safe and how to enjoy a sensitive ecosystem respectfully, it's a major undertaking and severely stunted by lack of funds to hire more concierge, I mean staff.
I work for some of these agencies and live very close to the parks, a couple wilderness areas and a huge national forest where there are grizzly bears, wolves, lynx and bison among many other species. It is the only place in the lower 48 states where there exist all the animals that were here before we trashed everything else... a complete ecosystem and it's in danger and will soon crash if we don't solidify its protection in perpetuity. This Congress will trash it in with a vote at 2am and nobody will be able to stop them from voting.
