Chaffetz "Disposal" Bill Would Offload 694,200 Acres In WY; No One Even Knows Precisely Where
A U.S. congressman from Utah introduced a bill last week that would direct the Secretary of Interior to sell 694,200 acres of public land in Wyoming. H.R.621 introduced by Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz targets about four percent of the Bureau of Land Management’s 17-million-acre holdings in the Equality State. The bill singles out property identified in a study that’s 20 years old.
“The long overdue disposal of excess federal lands will free up resources for the federal government while providing much-needed opportunities for economic development in struggling rural communities,” Chaffetz said in a statement. The identified acres “have been deemed to serve no purpose for taxpayers.”
His website said the bill calls for the “responsible disposal” of 3.3 million acres nationwide. But a summary of the measure at Congress.gov says that it would “direct the Secretary of the Interior to sell…” the property, not necessarily dispose of it responsibly. Although the bill is catalogued as “introduced,” its text wasn’t available on the website by press time. “Delays can occur when there are a large number of bills to prepare or when a very large bill has to be printed,” the website said.
The 20-year-old report that is the foundation of the bill includes a page each for 22 of the 23 Wyoming counties listing acreages. Teton County is not on the list. The pages list BLM property ranging from 1,000 acres in Laramie County to 122,000 acres in Crook County, according to a copy of the 1997 document posted on Chaffetz’s website. The bill attracted immediate criticism from conservation and environmental groups. “Nobody really knows where these acres really are,” said Erik Molvar, executive director of Western Watersheds Project. In the 1997 report, “they didn’t provide a map.”
EDIT
http://www.wyofile.com/bill-sell-694200-acres-public-land/
= new reply since forum marked as read
