Pirate's Cove

Hey, who doesn’t like national forests and national parks? Personally, I think it’s great that we have them to protect the environment along with special places. However, there’s something a bit unhinged (shockingly) from this Jenny Rowland article in the Climate section of Think Progress

GOP Platform Proposes To Get Rid Of National Parks And National Forests

The Republican platform committee met this week to draft the document that defines the party’s official principles and policies. Along with provisions on pornography and LGBT “conversion therapy” is an amendment calling for the indiscriminate and immediate disposal of national public lands.

The inclusion of this provision in the Republican Party’s platform reflects the growing influence of and ideological alliance between several anti-park members of the GOP and anti-government extremists, led by Cliven Bundy, who dispute the federal government’s authority over national public lands.

“Congress shall immediately pass universal legislation providing a timely and orderly mechanism requiring the federal government to convey certain federally controlled public lands to the states,” reads the adopted language. “We call upon all national and state leaders and representatives to exert their utmost power and influence to urge the transfer of those lands identified.”

The provision calls for an immediate full-scale disposal of “certain” public lands, without defining which lands it would apply to, leaving national parks, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges, and national forests apparently up for grabs and vulnerable to development, privatization, or transfer to state ownership.

In reality, what this aims to do is return certain lands back to the states, where it belongs. Why?

In most of the Northeast and South, where the only federal presence is the occasional military base or national park, complaints that the government owns too much land seem laughable.

But out west, the government lays claim to huge, state-sized swaths of land—more than 630 million acres, greater than the landmass of Texas, California, Florida and New York combined. In some states, government agencies are the biggest landowner; in Nevada, 80 percent of land is federally owned.

There’s a map at the link that highlights just how much land the government owns out west, which has long been a bone of contention among people in those areas. Is a state really a state when Los Federales own 80%? Most of it is not a national park or national forest. It’s just land that is owned and unused.

But, as typical, the hysterics on the left are hysterical. You shouldn’t expect different.

Crossed at Right Wing News.