A federal fault line on public lands

In the early 1980s, John Kenneth Galbraith commented, "Where socialized ownership of land is concerned, only the USSR and China can claim company with the United States."

Since that time, China and the former USSR (Russia) have significantly liberalized private control of property to unleash economic activity within their borders.

In the United States, however, the federal government continues to increase its centralized control over lands. The government controls more than half of all lands in the Western states .

Conversely, the U.S. government controls less than 5 percent of all lands in the states east of Colorado. However, there was a time when that was different. Then "frontier states" such as Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida united to petition the federal government to dispose of public lands as promised in their statehood enabling acts. These states persistently demanded Congress honor their statehood promises to dispose of the public lands so they could adequately educate their children, grow their economies and provide well-paying jobs for their people with the abundant natural resources in these lands.

These states knew their public lands history - that the federal government was only granted title to the public lands to dispose of them to create "distinct republican states with the same rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence, as the other states." These states tireless efforts paid off - succeeded in compelling Congress to transfer title to their public lands.

The duty to dispose of the public lands in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming is the same duty that the federal government honored for all states east of Colorado when it disposed of their public lands (see www.AmericanLands Council.org). It's time for the federal government to keep its promise to these states. It's time to allow today's Western states to use their native resourcefulness to responsibly unleash and deploy the abundant natural resources within their borders.

Locked up in federally controlled lands in the Western states are an abundance of precious metals, rare earth minerals, oil, gas, coal and other energy resources.

Throughout the federally controlled lands in the Western states are hundreds of billions of dollars of renewable timber resources. Not long ago these resources fostered thriving towns with well-funded schools. However, because of so-called "preservationist" federal forest policies that so excessively overload the forests with "untouchable" timber, many of these communities are shrinking and large percentages of children in these communities are on federal free and reduced lunch.

The federal government and many Western states are fighting huge budget shortfalls - all while we have untold trillions in natural resources locked up in federally controlled lands. We should be responsibly unleashing these resources to create jobs, provide education equality for our children, ensure more responsible environmental quality and secure economic self-reliance and energy independence for the nation as a whole.

If you live in the West, contact your local, state and federal leaders today and ask them to compel the federal government to keep the same promise it made and kept with all states east of Colorado to timely dispose of public lands in your state. Let's put our states and the nation back on the path to productivity and independence.

We have the resources, if we have the will.

Jonathan E. Johnson III is the president of Utah-based Overstock.com Inc.