CIAO DATE: 03/2009
January 2009
The Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and Fish andWildlife Service collectivelymanagewell over a quarter of the land in theUnited States.Although everyone agrees that the landsandresourcesmanagedbytheseagencies are exceedingly valuable, the lands collectively cost taxpayers around $7 billion per year. Several Cato Institute studies have called for privatization of the public lands, but this idea is strongly resisted by environmentalists, recreationists, and other users of public land. An alternative policy thatwill both enhance the values sought by environmentalists and improve the fiscalmanagement of the lands is to turn them into fiduciary trusts. Under this proposal, the U.S. would retain title to the lands, but the rules under which they would be governed would be very different.
Resource link: A Matter of Trust: Why Congress Should Turn Federal Lands into Fiduciary Trusts [PDF] - 464K