[Vision2020] HR 3855

[AreaMan (DanC)]

Phil,

I'm all kinds of in favor of selling from one public entity (USFS/BLM)
to another (IDL/Latah County).  That's a win/win, in my opinion.

DC

-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Nisbet [mailto:pcnisbet1 at hotmail.com] 
Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 12:16 PM
To: areaman at moscow.com
Cc: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: RE: [Vision2020] HR 3855


Dan

The bill is flawed, which is of course why Otter pulled out on it.

Back when we discussed similar things years ago, the obvious change to
this 
kind of legislation would have been and still should be to sell some of
that 
land to the State and local governments.

A big portion of the Forest and BLM lands in Idaho are not Wilderness
and do 
not possess quality to be Wilderness.  They are working lands and in
many 
cases we have problems seeing them properly administered.  This in many 
cases is because the property positions of Federal and State and Private

Entities are a patchwork of ownerships.

That patchwork is supposed to be cleaned up by land exchanges and other
such 
devices, but as those who have experienced the process of it, the time
and 
effort required to transfer lands takes decades and more money than a
lot of 
that land is worth.

We all know that the 66.4% of Idaho owned by the absentee landlords in 
Washington DC is not generating revenues for our states tax
requirements.  
We also know that the program of Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) does
not 
come anywhere near to covering the Feds portion of the costs to the
State or 
its community for the ownership they have.  Allowing the Idaho
Department of 
Lands to purchase 15% of the USDA Forest Service and BLM lands in Idaho 
would be a very good thing in terms of helping to pay for education in
our 
state.

The Feds own over 35 million acres of Idaho and selling 5,250,000 acres
to 
IDL that could be added to the University and School trust land base
would 
add over a Billion dollars in value to our educational institutions
here.  
IDL currently manages 3,650,000 acres of land that return $65,000,000 a
year 
to the States educational endowments every year, so adding more than
double 
to that would be a great way of helping to improve education here in the

state.

So lets say we carve a mortgage deal with the Federal Government on five
and 
a quarter million acres of ground and pay them $15 an acre per year for
the 
next thirty years.  The land would still generate an extra $25,000,000
for 
Idaho Schools in that first 30 years and over a hundred million dollars
a 
year thereafter.

And if it were Idaho Department of Lands property, it would still be
public 
lands accessible to the general public.

Phil Nisbet


>From: "AreaMan (DanC)" <areaman at moscow.com>
>To: "'Moscow Vision 2020'" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
>Subject: RE: [Vision2020] HR 3855
>Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2006 10:22:33 -0800
>
>Amazingly, Tom Hansen and I agree on something.
>
>I am opposed to selling our public lands to private interests.  It 
>doesn't matter if you are a hiker, hunter, dirt biker, snowmobiler, or 
>even just a couch potato.  Everyone benefits from the harvest of timber

>on federal lands, and many reap the benefits of being able to recreate 
>in our public lands/national forests.  I am especially wary of Section 
>1(c), which would be most detrimental to my way of life here in Idaho. 
>It would be *slightly* more amenable if this bill took an equal 
>percentage of lands from each state, but I'm still against the sale of 
>public lands to private interests.  It's not that I'm against all 
>private interests.  The biggest landowner in Latah County does a pretty

>good job of taking care of their holdings, and they are also pretty 
>good about letting people "use" their land for recreational purposes 
>and allowing access for hunting and fishing, just as long as the users 
>are responsible (that's a whole 'nother barrel of monkeys there, maybe 
>it'll come up some other time).
>
>On the other hand, why couldn't timber sales be made on these lands and

>earmarked for disaster relief?  No matter what, timber is going to be 
>harvested because that is a part of responsible stewardship and the 
>management of forest health.  Of course we'd have to see where timber 
>dollars would be taken from before it could meet full approval.
>
>Hoping for a good summer of trail riding in the St. Joe and Clearwater 
>Nat'l forests (and hopefully on some private ground *with permission*),
>
>DC
>
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