Save Public Lands!!

This land is YOUR land.

Do not let federal land be "given" to the states, and do not let state lands be sold so that rich companies and wealthy individuals can continue to avoid their federal and state tax obligations.

Public lands are a public good.

Federal lands were NEVER owned by the states -- they were bought by the federal government or acquired by treaty with the federal government.

Major federal land acquisitions include the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, the Transcontinental Treaty of 1819, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, and the Oregon Country Treaty of 1846.

The remaining land was stolen from the remaining indigenous people with help from federal troops, and railroad and road expansion funded by eastern taxpayers.

State governments before 1900 were weak, and state treasuries generally threadbare without the means to provide basic services, such as road maintenance, fire suppression, police power, or water storage.

The states have NO right to federal lands and will move to sell them to private developers, including timber and mining interests that will ruin the land and close public access roads, as they already are doing.

The first step in STEALING YOUR LAND has already happened in the U.S. House of Representatives where they changed the way government calculates the cost of transferring federal lands to the states and other entities, a move done in order to make it easier for members of the new Congress to cede federal control of public lands to state officials.

Donald Trump's new Secretary of Interior voted for this provision, and he now needs to hear from you, the American people.