Sherry Robinson
All She Wrote

During the Great Depression, western ranchers faced crashing commodity prices and the ravages of drought and Dust Bowl. But that wasn’t all. The federal government was creating new national parks and monuments and expanding earlier designated areas. In states like New Mexico many were pleased to have new attractions for their budding tourism trade, but others objected. Unlike national forests, these new carve-outs didn’t allow grazing, mining, drilling or logging.

I came across this information last week while I was researching the Depression and was surprised to learn that we’ve been having pretty much the same arguments over public lands for the better part of a century.

In the latest chapter, Congress has seen a bare-knuckle fight over a provision in the budget reconciliation bill to sell more than 250 million acres of public lands, including 14 million acres in New Mexico. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, claims he wants to expand the nation’s housing supply by using public lands.

The provision died after the Senate parliamentarian ruled against it, but Lee returned with a new provision requiring the federal Bureau of Land Management to sell hundreds of thousands of acres within five miles of population centers.

Two pretty obvious points about the new proposal: Most BLM land is in the middle of nowhere, and housing developers will only build in places where people want to live. Plus, they want some infrastructure. You know, utilities, streets and sewers.

Lee’s approach all along has fallen short of honest debate. When his Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee finally revealed properties on the auction block, the list had the look of selection by dart throwing. Mt. Taylor? Seriously? Some nitwit in Washington D.C. chose a dominant geologic feature in the state – from the top you can see one-third of New Mexico – and a peak sacred to multiple tribes.

In New Mexico the list of 61 properties was loaded with active recreation areas, including busy hiking trails north and east of Los Alamos, the beautiful Grindstone Canyon Loop Trail near Ruidoso, the Zuni Mountain Trail System that Gallup actively markets to tourists, and the famous and historic Dog Canyon Trail near Alamogordo. Seriously?

Lee and his minions had vast tracts to choose from but went out of their way to poke a finger into the eyes of tourism and outdoor advocates. Further, the now-deleted provision would have hurt the outdoor recreation industry, which the state has carefully cultivated and was good for $3.2 billion and 29,000 jobs in 2023.

The latest change deletes Forest Service lands from the bill, but don’t assume they’re gone for good.

In the new provision, Carlsbad’s La Cueva trail system will probably remain a target. The BLM manages 15 miles of trails through 2,200 acres of Guadalupe Mountains foothills and Chihuahuan desert. It’s been popular for biking, hiking and horseback riding since the mid-1990s. On websites for bikers, it draws praise and tips. La Cueva’s sale would do what for housing?

Last week, I suggested half seriously that since Utah was so anxious to cash in its public lands we let them be a test case. I don’t think they’d sell their crown jewels, but I’m curious how far they would go. Mark Allison, of New Mexico Wild, pointed out correctly that “these lands don’t belong to Utah, they belong to all Americans.”

We’ve already had such an experiment, he says. “The Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1998 provided a legal mechanism for sales of public lands in the national areas. There were 68,000 acres of BLM lands authorized in Clark County. After 26 years, almost two-thirds of that land remains unsold. Importantly, only 562 acres have been reserved for affordable housing – and of that only 30 acres have been sold. The experiment has failed.”

That gets me to the other side of the public lands argument. If we stop pretending this is about housing and take a good hard look at public land, we might have to admit that not every inch is a scenic or environmental gem. If we stop throwing darts at a map and actually ask the land agencies, they would tell us which parcels are difficult to manage or don’t really serve the national interest.

If we had an honest debate, we might also look at the fact that the federal government owns 63% of Utah and 80% of Nevada. That drives the agitation to sell coming from these two states. When the government seems to own everything, their restlessness is understandable, but why are they forcing New Mexico, with federal land ownership of around 32%, into land sales it doesn’t want?

Sherry Robinson is a longtime New Mexico reporter and editor. She has worked in Grants, Gallup, the Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico Business Weekly and Albuquerque Tribune. She is the author of four books. Her columns won first place in 2024 from New Mexico Press Women.