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Christopher Ketcham Quotes

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Famous Christopher Ketcham Quotes

“DeVoto observed in the 1940s that no rancher in his right mind wanted ownership per se of the public lands. That would entail responsibility, stewardship, and worse, the payment of property taxes. What the rancher who is farsighted has always wanted, and what extractive industry wants in general, is private exploitation with costs paid by the public.”

RanchersPublic Lands
Book:This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption are Ruining the American West
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“Attack the value of public lands as a national birthright, reduce their worth in the public eye, diminish the institutions that protect the land, cut down their authority, bring them into disrepute, undermine public confidence, neuter enforcement, create a climate of uncertainty and disorder, demoralize the land managers--this is the long game now being played.”

Public Lands
Book:This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption are Ruining the American West
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“Public lands seizure, conceived as a fell swoop of the sword, will likely never come to pass. The law bars it, precedent bars it, and the Supreme Court has spoken to this effect repeatedly. FLPMA, unless amended by Congress, establishes that the land shall remain in the hands of all citizens in perpetuity. I think the seizure will require more delicate schemes, slowly moving and imperceptibly violent. In Congress it starts with an amendment to an appropriations bill here and there. A rider or two or three to bills that otherwise must pass to maintain the budget. It’s easy to curtail the protection of seeming irrelevancies like grass, soil, water, air, and wildlife when the public is distracted with the question of whether the government will go on functioning.”

GovernmentEnvironmentPublic Lands
Book:This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption are Ruining the American West
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