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This weekend is very important. No...it's not a holiday, but it is the annual meeting of the Western Governors' Association. This is the time when our governors from the western states discuss the issues that impact us the most.
If you look at the agenda for this meeting, being chaired by Utah's Governor Gary Herbert, you'll see that the Public Lands is on the agenda, however, it is unclear whether or not they intend to specifically discuss the Transfer of Public Lands legislation, which five western states have joined in passing.
Please contact your governor today and let him or her know that you want them to specifically discuss the Transfer of Public Lands and how they intend to implement the Only Solution Big Enough to deal with the critical issues facing our states today. It is imperative that your governor understands that you and your community want them to pursue this course of action aggressively and in a united manner that leverages our jurisdictional power.
Click here for a list of all of the governors in the Western Governors' Association and contact information for each.
As we've pointed out many times before, this has been done before. In 1931, Thomas Maddock, a member of Arizona's first legislature and Colorado River Commissioner, addressed the Western Governors. His powerful testimony was added to the 1932 Congressional Record in the hearings on Granting Remaining Unreserved Public Lands to the States.
A Plan for Transfer of the Public Lands
Excerpts taken from the 1932 Congressional Hearings on
Granting Remaining Unreserved Public Lands to the States.
"It is futile to criticize without suggesting a remedy. This nation today is ruled by organized minorities. That we do not like this system of government is no reason why we should not use it if it is our only recourse. Bureaus can not exist without appropriations. The Representatives from the western states are comparatively too few in number, and perhaps too anxious to have the Bureaus expend funds in their districts to offer much hope of curbing the Bureaus, but the eleven public land states have twenty-two Senators and the Senate must approve all Bureau appropriations. A little group of about half this number have been the balance of power in the United States Senate for the last decade. If fifteen or twenty of the western Senators will unite on any fair policy for the local control of western lands they can insure its adoption.
"The Governors of the western states possess the most powerful peace time weapon, publicity. If you gentlemen will unite on a policy of resistence to further Federal encroachment, and the curtailment of present superfluous activity by the Federal Government in affairs that should be handled by officials answerable to the people at the polls, and will arouse the citizens of your commonwealth your Senators will be glad to carry out the wishes of your people, and the control of the lands and resources of your states will be vested where they were intended to be, in the hands of those without whose adjacent residency they would be worthless. Lands and resources have always been obtained or retained by fighting. Human nature has not changed. If the West desires to control its own resources it must fight to do so."
A small handful of western governors can drive public sentiment to mobilize a small handful of US Senators to tie up Congress until it understands and honors to today's western states, the same promise it has already honored to Hawaii and all states east of Colorado to transfer our public lands.
We would send that same message to today's western governors, and hope you will do the same.
We are so grateful for the things you do to support this important issue of our day. The five minutes you spend today will make a world of difference tomorrow.
Ken Ivory
ALC President
P.S. Click here to discover how you can stand with the American Lands Council, and help this work move forward.
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