Transferring federal lands to states is not the answer to public land management, according to a new study by Randal O'Toole of the Thoreau Institute, published by the Cato Institute. In his view, the lands are subject to political manipulation -- whether they are under federal control or the control of the states.

He urges the creation of "properly designed" trusts as an immediate step toward better management of public lands.

The federal government owns about 650 million acres of natural resource lands.

• Within the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Land Management controls 270 million acres; the National Park Service, 80 million acres; and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 90 million acres.

• The U.S. Forest Service, in the Department of Agriculture, oversees another 192 million of the total.

• The vast majority of those lands -- including more than 75 percent of the national forest acreage, more than 90 percent of national park area, and more than 99 percent of the BLM lands -- are located in 12 western states including Alaska.

Rather than making money, each of the agencies' land management programs costs taxpayers from $600 million to $2 billion per year.

O'Toole urges Congress to set up trusts for the lands, not only to remove temptations for political meddling, but to promote fiscal and environmental responsibility. Trust managers would be funded out of their own income, rather than through taxpayer dollars. They would be allowed to charge whatever they could for resources in their care, with a share of funds from user fees going toward a fund to protect biodiversity.

Source: Randal O'Toole, "Should Congress Transfer Federal Lands to the States?" Policy Analysis No. 276, July 3, 1997, Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001, (202) 842-0200.

For full text of the Cato study http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-276es.html