Sign of the Times

The exalted New York Times on Sunday turned its editorial attention to the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act.

"As cornucopias go, it is hard to top what has been happening in Nevada," wrote the Timesmen, as Christmas carols and popcorn-sated pigeons wafted up toward their gray-tower windows from Times Square, far below.

"Local governments have been cashing in on the sale of federal lands to spare their taxpayers the tab for a raft of amenities that include parks and shooting ranges," The Times continued. "That's right: the federal government has auctioned off thousands of acres in the last decade under an unusual law that channels most of the proceeds into an account set aside for projects in Nevada. ...

"One of the main rationales for the program was to acquire and protect environmentally sensitive tracts of land in private hands, but only 15 cents of every dollar has gone toward such projects. ... The big losers are taxpayers everywhere else, few of whom even know about this one-state bonanza. ... Nevadans have every right to have boccie and tennis courts. But it is not clear why the federal government should sell off chunks of the nation to pay for them."

Well, we should have known someone was going to call us on the "boccie" thing, eventually.

Manhattan Island -- and Queens, for that matter, not to mention some equally pricey tracts in Port Chester -- are also "chunks of the nation." As New Yorkers stand shivering in their rags this holiday season, pleading for federal aid to help rebuild their decaying infrastructure, why doesn't Washington just sell off some of those "chunks of the nation" -- which would generate higher revenues than a couple thousand acres of our own lizard habitat?

Oh, wait. The federal government doesn't own any of that land -- except for the occasional dockyard, arsenal and post office building, as authorized in the Constitution -- does it? In fact, New Yorkers have been free to enrich themselves by buying and selling and using those lands for profitable purposes for centuries, haven't they?

Where in the Constitution does it say the federal government -- let alone these struggling paupers of New York City -- are authorized to own, manage and control 90 percent of any Western state, and to expect a share of the profits when the federals finally, reluctantly, deign to "sell" these lands to the very people who live here?

Let us imagine for a moment that Manhattan had attempted to grow from the quaint seaport surrounded by woods, farms and cesspits to which George Washington returned in 1783, into today's metropolis, under the conditions currently facing Nevadans.

Let us imagine 90 percent of Manhattan island were today owned by the federal government, that New Yorkers could use the bulk of that land only under leases whose conditions could be changed at whim by Washington -- whose agents were even now busy dumping boulders and chaining gates to shut down public access to Morningside Heights and the Upper East Side. Imagine that even the most minor attempt to lay a corrugated steel pipe under a dirt road up near 5th Avenue at 51st Street currently had to be delayed until federal bureaucrats got around to sending out inspectors to certify there was no "danger to riparian habitat," no "threat to endangered species or archaeological sites."

Build high-rise buildings north of 23rd Street? Hold on just a minute there, bub. A certain percentage of that land must be left available for recreational uses. And you didn't think to bring up the presence of the endangered window-ledge-loving rock dove, did you? Do you have a sanctuary and recovery program in place? Who's your environmental adviser, for heaven's sake, John D. Rockefeller?

In fact, Western congressional delegations should remove such concerns from the realm of the hypothetical. Enact the New England Seacoast Cranberry Bog Restoration Act -- with full powers to seize property and remediate past unpermitted "drainage" enterprises -- along with programs to reintroduce breeding populations of the gray wolf and the mountain lion to New York's Central park -- and see how long it takes the folks in Times Square to change their tune about beneficent federal "land and species management."