by Walter "Ski" Szymanski
Silver City, NM

At the invitation of New Mexico's Southwestern County Commission Alliance (SWCCA) and the Council of Border Conservation Districts, a fast-talking lawyer and Republican state representative from Utah, made a presentation to about 60 attendees at a meeting in Deming on December 3, urging them to follow his state's lead and push for legislation in New Mexico to "take back" national public lands.

Utah State Representative Ken Ivory is the chief sponsor of HB 148, which demands that the U.S. Government turn over to his state the title to almost all of the federal lands in Utah. Ivory pushed for passage of HB 148, and Utah Republican Governor Gary Herbert signed it into law earlier this year, in spite of the fact that the Utah Legislature's legal counsel issued a written warning that HB 148 has a "high probability of being declared unconstitutional."

Mr. Ivory's bill is almost word-for-word the same as the one Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed earlier this year. One of the reasons given by Governor Brewer for her veto was that the legislation appeared "to be in conflict or not reconcilable with [the] U.S. Constitution."

After Governor Brewer vetoed that legislation, the land-grabbing Arizona state legislature put it on the ballot for the Nov. 6 election, where Arizona citizens resoundingly rejected it by over a two-to-one margin.

Mr. Ivory said he's disappointed in Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's veto, but also says he's still going forward with his plan "to educate other states" about his sagebrush rebellion redux ideas. In fact, it was announced at the Deming meeting that Mr. Ivory and NM State Representative Yvette Herrell (Otero County) were next meeting with Governor Martinez to enlist her support for similar land-grabbing legislation in our state.

Representative Ivory also said that his bill differs from Arizona's bill in that Utah had no intention of selling off federal public lands conveyed back to Utah. Really? Why, then, Mr. Ivory, does HB 148 contain a provision, exactly like the one in Arizona's vetoed and publicly-rejected legislation, that requires Utah to pay the federal government no less than 95% of the proceeds from sales of former federal public lands your state sells off to the highest bidder?

Mr. Ivory says he's pushing his land-grab scheme for the benefit of Utah's children. Fair enough. But it doesn't take much digging online to see that the Republican-controlled Utah Legislature has decided time and time again not to fund Utah schools at a higher level than they are. Funny, though, that same legislature has an excellent record awarding very favorable tax treatment to natural resource extraction companies in that state.

The children of Utah would be much better served if rather than expending great time, money and resources on a quixotic quest that meets the very definition of folly, Mr. Ivory devoted himself to making sure extraction and other corporations in his state pay their fair share, rather than enabling them to live high off of the underfunded Utah public education system.

Federal public lands in Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, or anywhere else, do not belong to their state legislatures or only to the people of those states. United States public lands belong to ALL Americans.

Governor Martinez and all other NM state officials and legislators should in no uncertain terms tell Mr. Ivory, thanks, but no thanks. The State of New Mexico should follow Arizona's lead and resoundingly reject any attempt to embroil our state in a cockamamie land-grabbing pipe dream to mine and drill our national public lands for maximum profit, wildlife and environment be damned.

And SWCCA's county commissioners, Mr. Ivory, and NM State Representative Yvette Herrell need to take a hard read of the new Headwaters Economics report (West Is Best: How Public Lands in the West Create a Competitive Economic Advantage), which found that the West's popular national parks, monuments, wilderness areas and other public lands offer its growing high-tech and services industries a competitive advantage, which is a major reason why the western economy has outperformed the rest of the U.S. economy in key measures of growth–employment, population, and personal income–during the last four decades.