YouWinAgainGravity: cman: thomps: cman: Sigh

The left v right battle continues to fall into idiotic territory and it is we the people who lose.

i'm sorry, where in this proposed bill is the left represented?

The fact that this shiat never happened until Obama came into the White House indicates that it is a left v right battle.

Law and Order was never cancelled until Obama came into the White House. This destruction of legendary tv shows is clearly a left v right battle.

He's simply saying that once the Right was out of power, they made noise about all of this crap. They politicized something that wasn't a political issue before.

Nadie_AZ: YouWinAgainGravity: cman: thomps: cman: Sigh

The left v right battle continues to fall into idiotic territory and it is we the people who lose.

i'm sorry, where in this proposed bill is the left represented?

The fact that this shiat never happened until Obama came into the White House indicates that it is a left v right battle.

Law and Order was never cancelled until Obama came into the White House. This destruction of legendary tv shows is clearly a left v right battle.

He's simply saying that once the Right was out of power, they made noise about all of this crap. They politicized something that wasn't a political issue before.

right, but it was a political issue before. it has been since at least the 1970s. it's crazy people being crazy when they have the opportunity to be crazy.

WhackingDay: The federal government owns nearly the entire state of NV? I know that most of that state is mountains and desert, but even so, that just doesn't seem possible.

It was sparsely populated to start, and then it was found to have lots of silver so the Feds wanted that, so they didn't release their old territorial possessions for private use, and then the Feds further discovered that enormous swaths of uninhabited desert are terribly well-suited to testing experimental munitions and aircraft.

The Feds might sell/release some of their holdings here and there someday, but Nevada belongs to Uncle Sam so long as Uncle Sam exists.

Same goes for Alaska, but in re: petroleum.

Cinaed: AZ, you might want to sweeten the pot... promise to educate yourselves, offer to stop being morons, that kind of thing.

Some of us try. They don't listen. Being white is more important than being right.

Mikey1969: then try and sell it to mining and oil companies, and turn around and take the money

If it was worth anything to oil/mining companies... wouldn't the federal government already have sold it to them?

rosebud_the_sled: I call BS on the "we need to build more schools" argument coming from Arizona. The only time a Republican would want to build a school is if it was a Christian madras.

Not necessarily. The proponent of the bill, regardless of the party, might have a big construction firm as a donor.

Antimatter: It's basically a way for the state reps, and their conservative backers, to loot the state's lands for massive profits, at the expensive of the environment and long term public good.

Arizona has little water. It's biggest surface water is the Colorado River. After getting Jr rights to the river, they got the CAP- Central Arizona Project. This was to bring water to Phoenix and Tucson- to offset groundwater usage and be a backup to help a parched state to quench the thirst of its citizens and farmers/ranchers.

Which is why, 2 years ago, the state ok'd the CAP to be extended to provide ... water for mining. Remember, a year later Lake Mead almost dropped so low that they turned off the CAP. They don't care about any of that. Not saying the entire government doesn't (some very much do and fight hard for the good of the people) but these jack offs who get money from ALEC do not care.

verbaltoxin: It's almost like millions of people moving out to where there's no water was a bad idea or something. Strange.

Water politics here is so screwed up.

Example:

Arizona is a junior member of the 7 state/2 nation Colorado River Compact. California gets unlimited water based on their 'draw'. Arizona gets it's amount. Once Lake Mead drops to a certain level- Arizona loses its water. That's sorta a big deal, but it gets better- We have a nuclear power plant, here. It requires lots of water. So a lot of our waste water from the cities goes there. BUT Arizona only uses 30% of the plant for its own power usage. The rest? California. So California gets energy and free water usage from Arizona.

But don't fear- San Diego, LA, Las Vegas- they are all going back to the desert. Phoenix might survive... in smaller form.

Karac: When the federal government has to send lawyers to court to get stupid shiat like this overturned can they send a bill to the state in question for lawyer's fees and court costs?

They should bill the sponsors of the bill, the lobbyists who pushed it and the organization that wrote it.

HeadLever: Nadie_AZ: They don't care about any of that.

That is not true. The mining will be first shut down before the City if the demands dictate. And don't forget the role of water reuse is starting to have in these parts of the country. Right now, about 8% to 10% of Tucon's water supply is indirect water reuse. This number will continue to grow each year.

My comment was regarding those members of ALEC in the legislature. Maybe they would. I hope so. I'm not very confident in that, however.

And yes, reuse of water should be huge. It is growing and will continue to grow.

firefly212: Magorn: I get election year pandering , but pandering to whom? Who is stupid enough to believe this will actually happen just because AZ says so? And if they know it won't ever happen why aren't they outraged over the waste of time and money this represents?

and if there is anyone under the illusion this will actually happen take a gander at this graphic:

[blogs-images.forbes.com image 480x395]

The federal Government owns roughly 1/3 of all the land in the US, but the vast majority of it is in the west. here are the states with the least amount of federal land
1.Connecticut 0.4%
2.Rhode Island 0.4%
3.Iowa 0.8%
4.New York 0.8%
5.Maine 1.1%
6.Kansas 1.2%
7.Nebraska 1.4%
8.Alabama 1.6%
9.Ohio 1.7%
10.Illinois 1.8%

Now look at this list of state with the most:
1.Nevada 84.5%
2.Alaska 69.1%
3.Utah 57.4%
4.Oregon 53.1%
5.Idaho 50.2%
6.Arizona 48.1%
7.California 45.3%
8.Wyoming 42.3%
9.New Mexico 41.8%
10.Colorado 36.6%


Notice a pattern on the last list? If they did it for AZ they'd have to do it for all of them.

As a Coloradan, I don't want the federal government to give up its land here. They keep the best, nicest, most well-preserved environments free for all of us... sure oil interests, frackers, and uranium miners would much rather destroy the rockies and poison my water... and they'd probably even let the state keep a couple bucks for every few million they make, but I actually like nature... sometimes government needs to act for the public good, not the private profit.

Two words: "mountaintop removal"

In WV they got tired of actually digging MINES to get at the coal they want so now they just set charges and literally blast the tops off mountains. Check this before and after picture:

If the Rockies were privately owned like most of the Appalachians you bet your ass they do the same thing out ther

HeadLever: SN1987a goes boom: Is this the land that include the nuclear weapons tests sites?

No. Millitary installations are not part of this. It is mostly BLM lands. And if you want to know how it can create jobs, you can always look to the natural resources industry for that answer. When those that mine, log and graze pubic lands, there are usage fees that are put in place and that money goes to the owner of the land (in this case the feds). If it were state land, most of that money would be going to the states instead. Also, local taxes cannot be applied to uses or facilities locatated on pblic land.

Well, my favorite piece of BLM land:


generates about $600K in usage fees to the BLM for one week, but the local nigh-ghost towns get tons of money pumped into their economy via the general store/gas station and the state and county make a tidy profit making the event pay all the OT for their deputies/state troopers and EMT/fire personnel the BLM requires in the rental contract