Editing 79-14-B8 (section)

=== Transcript ===
On September 9th a meeting took place in Reno, Nevada. Those gathering there
were representatives of the Attorney Generals of 13 Western states. They met in
response to a law passed by the Nevada legislature in July in which that state laid
claim to 49 million acres of land owned by the U.S. Government and administered by
the Bureau of Land Management.

Nevada has started what is being called the "Sagebrush Rebellion". From the
Rockies, across the deserts and all the way to the Pacific, the western states
are voicing their angry resentment of a powerful absentee landlord -- the federal
government -- which has overlaid the West with controls and regulations as irksome
as barbwire was in an earlier day.

The West has a legitimate beef (and I don't intend that to be a pun). Early
in our history, as territories became states, the federal lands within their borders
were turned over to the states for development or sale to private owners. Naturally,
the federal government retained title to lands it had actually developed for use.
These included military reservations, federal installations, national parks and
so forth.

As the nation expanded westward, however, and the newer western states were added,
a change occurred. The 100th meridian marked the change. To the east of the
meridian federal ownership of land ranges form six-tenths of one percent in Iowa to
a high of 12 percent in New Hampshire: In the District of Columbia, our nation's
capital, it only amounts of 26 percent.

But west of the meridian it's a different story. It's almost as if the government
said, "we're being foolishly generous giving all this land away." Federal
ownership goes from the six states east of the 100th meridian averaging about three
percent to the four states west of them averaging 37 percent federally owned. And,
as you continue to move west through the most recent additions to the Union the percentage
goes up in all but Washington which has 29 percent of its land in federal
ownership. Arizona is 43 percent, Utah 66 percent, Idaho 64 percent, Nevada 87 percent,
Oregon 53 percent, and California 45 percent. But then comes our largest and
newest state Alaska and the federal government stubbornly holds on to 96 percent.

This federal land has been made available for multiple use lumbering, mining,
cattle-grazing and recreational. But now the B.L.M. is writing new regulations which,
in effect, will change the rules in the middle of the game. Out in Idaho a rancher
whose cattle operation is based on the lease of 15,000 acres of grazing land (a
lease his family has held for 92 years) is told the government is taking back the
land as a winter range for deer. The E.P.A. tells him he can't poison coyotes and
the F.D.A. has ordered that only a veterinarian can administer antibiotics to cattle.
The nearest vet is 60 miles away and doesn't make house calls. The B.L.M. is
suspending the 10-year leases and changing to a year-to-year basis and imposing 212
separate environmental impact statements on the ranchers.

Is the federal government a better custodian of 700 million acres than the
states would be? In a recent fire the B.L.M. managers refused to let a rancher
help put out the fire. 

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.
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