Tim Worstall

Forgive Me.

I’m going to have to ask for forgiveness from the more robustly partisan Republicans that I know. For here is a decision that is purely stupid, simply outrageously idiotic, one by the current administration that cannot be allowed to pass uncondemned.

(Yes, I am aware that those who are not robustly partisan Republicans might think that there are other such matters as well.)

John Tierney in the NYT:

Even though Mr. LeFevre and other ranchers along the Escalante
willingly sold their grazing permits, local and state politicians are
fighting to put cows back on those lands. They say their communities
and the ranching way of life will be destroyed if grazing lands are
allowed to revert to nature, and they’ve found sympathetic ears in the
Bush administration.

The Interior Department has decided that
environmentalists can no longer simply buy grazing permits and retire
them. Under its reading of the law – not wholly shared by predecessors
in the Clinton administration – land currently being used by ranchers
has already been determined to be "chiefly valuable for grazing" and
can be opened to herds at any time if the B.L.M.’s "land use planning
process" deems it necessary.

But why should a federal
bureaucrat decide what’s "chiefly valuable" about a piece of land? Mr.
Hedden and Mr. LeFevre have discovered a "land use planning process" of
their own: see who will pay the most for it. If an environmentalist
offers enough to induce a rancher to sell, that’s the best indication
the land is more valuable for hiking than for grazing.

You’d
expect Republicans to welcome this use of the market to resolve an
environmental dispute, with a voluntary, mutually beneficial
transaction instead of a political or legal fight leaving winners and
losers. It’s a classic case of the free-market environmentalism that
Gale Norton espoused before becoming interior secretary and overseer of
the B.L.M. lands.

Good Grief! If we can’t trust Republicans to favour markets over bureaucracy what bloody hope is there for the future? This has to be reversed.

In

7 responses

  1. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    “deems it necessary”: how can a spot of grazing be bloody “necessary”? Bullshit!

    Reply
  2. Chris harper Avatar
    Chris harper

    Doesn’t surprise me on two levels.
    First, the identification of free traders and economic liberals with the right is fairly recent. At the time the repeal of the Corn Laws split the Tories, the protectionists, led by Disraeli went on to found the Conservative Party. Those Tories who supported repeal combined with the Whigs to found the Liberals.
    Not too long ago my current views, labelled by my leftie mates as extreme right wing, would have had me lumped in with the Progressives and Radicals. Even today, just because the free marketeers identify with the right, doesn’t mean the right are all free marketeers. As far as how recent this is? I don’t know, but I don’t remember Churchill ever being held up as a free market paragon (although I am happy to be proven wrong on this. I don’t care that much).
    A couple of recent pertinent postings at samizdata –
    http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/007841.html
    http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/007817.html
    Second, for Gods sakes, these guys are politicians. Of course they are going to try and use taxpayers money to buy support. To expect a politician not to do this is like expecting a bear not to shit in the woods. The only way you stop this is to chain the buggers up.

    Reply
  3. rjw Avatar
    rjw

    Not sure why you feel the need to ask in advance for forgiveness for pointing out hypocrisy and stupidity in the decisions of the Bush admnistration. Why the special favours?
    You’re right on the substance of course. The whole point of permits is to allow the market to choose who values them most. And if environmentalists want to buy them to retire them – well – good for them.

    Reply
  4. dkidd Avatar
    dkidd

    What the NYT article doesn’t mention here (imagine – the NYT not digging further!) is there is a much larger land-use battle going on in southern Utah, as well as here in nearby southern Colorado, which has less to do with hiking vs. grazing and the ranching way of life on public lands, and everything to do with access to BLM and Forest Service land by oil and gas exploration companies.
    Here’s the rub. While this part of the country is rich in natural gas and oil-bearing deposits, it is also stunningly beautiful and residents will tell you it is a great place to live. There is now a battle being waged between two opposing camps. On one hand you have the oil and gas companies who receive some backing from some of the home grown state and local politicians who are pie-eyed by the idea of receiving a windfall in tax revenues from extraction. On the other hand you have a growing opposition of local residents (many of whom are vocal and wealthy and moved here to escape places like California, Texas and the East Coast) who do not want the environmental degradation that inevitably accompanies widespread drilling, regardless of the additional tax benefits. And where the gas and oil drillers desperately want to access these lands for drilling, a majority of the residents in this part of the country oppose any expansion of drilling on BLM and Forest Service land. So, the tie-in between the smaller battle that was outlined in the Times article and the larger war mentioned here is that it is all about who will be able to make decisions governing how federal land is used. In short, if the environmental crowd buys land only to retire it then there is no chance whatsoever for drilling to occur in the future. Looking at it this way, it becomes obvious why Bush and his rich supporters from the energy sector will want BLM land use decisions to remain under bureaucratic control.

    Reply
  5. Phil Hunt Avatar
    Phil Hunt

    Isn’t “robustly partisan” code for “bigot whose prejuduces trump any countervailing evidence”?
    Tim adds: Ah, so you broke the code.

    Reply
  6. Iain Murray Avatar
    Iain Murray

    A few notes on the history:
    Disraeli himself abandoned the corn laws soon after he had disposed of the Peelites. He recognized that protectionism and benefitting the rich land owners was at odds with the direction he was taking the Tory party in.
    We also need to remember that a large number of Peelite free-market types came back to the Tories when the Liberal Unionists defected from Gladstone’s side. The Conservative and Unionist party therefore had a large slug of the free-market in its philosophy, even if nobody acted like that from 1955-1974.
    Churchill, of course, was a Liberal from 1904 to 1923 and attempted to absorb the moribund Liberal Party into the Tories after 1945.

    Reply
  7. AlabamaWatch.com Avatar
    AlabamaWatch.com

    Doom on you Mr. Bureaucrat

    BUREAUCRAT: A political appointee, usually in the top echelon of government (But not always. Can be found at all levels of government and business), characterized by bureaucratic arrogance and lack of respect for the common people. Best comparison: th…

    Reply

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