Sale of the Century?
Debate Over Public Land Sales Rages
By Jonathan Weber, 11-20-05
The New York Times weighed in today on the hotly controversial provision of the House budget bill that would potentially put a large chunk of federal lands up for sale. The piece is a good explainer of the politics behind the provision and the alarm it has generated in parts of the West. Opponents of the measure (a modification of the Mining Act of 1872 that will allow the resumption of mine-claim "patenting") say it could put more than 5 million acres of federal land on the market and open up big chunks of it to real estate developement; supporters, led by Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), say only a tenth of that many acres would be affected.
While moderate Republicans have lately begun abandoning the Bush Administration and radicals like Pombo, the Times says their success in forcing at least a temporary withdrawal of provisions opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to energy development apparently depleted what political capital they had to devote to environmental issues. The budget bill now awaits reconciliation with the Senate version, which does not contain the land-sale provision.
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