LANDS: State control a bad idea

I’ve lived in Idaho for all of my 82 years. You would think there would be little that could surprise me. However, the fact that some legislators think the state can afford to take over and manage all of Idaho’s public lands comes as a real shock.

The state has more than 60 percent lands that are managed by the Forest Service and BLM. How is the state alone going to generate the hundreds of millions required to replace the revenue that comes from all Americans to manage this land? It is just plain wrong to suggest that Idaho taxpayers shoulder this unnecessary burden in order to appease political demagogues.

These political opportunists would have you believe we’ll make up lost revenue in resource extraction, through timber sales and mining. This does not take into account the 20 years it could take to procure future timber harvests or the rising costs of fire suppression. Plain and simple, the state does not have it in the budget to manage 33 million acres of new lands and would be forced to increase taxes to make up for it. The state should abandon these fiscally irresponsible and frivolous takeover attempts once and for all.

MAURICE JOHNSON

Moscow