Land Sale of The Century

(2 of 10)

By the end of its second century, the U.S. had disposed of 1.14 billion acres of public land, either to raise money or encourage settlement. When the going rate of $2 an acre proved too steep for many pioneers, Congress passed the Homestead Act of 1862. It gave 160 acres to any pioneer who would live on them for five years, build a house and clear a portion. But with the closing of the frontier, Government policy changed. Justifiably concerned by Americans' penchant for overgrazing, overcutting and generally misusing their land, the Government began to emphasize conservation. Around the turn of the century, it created a system of National Parks and established regulations for the management and protection of grasslands and forests. Occasionally, the Government reverted to the old ways. But for the most part, Republican and Democratic Administrations alike have viewed land as a form of capital and attempted to live off the interest, both actual and aesthetic, without touching the principal.

It is this public policy, and this philosophy, which are now undergoing dramatic change. With Watt leading the way, the Reagan Administration is putting the Government back into the business of selling its real estate. The Administration's decision has raised fundamental questions about how America should manage its land, and it has touched off a bitter battle between two rival and possibly irreconcilable forces.

The leading figure on one side of the debate is Watt, a contentious conservative who has created waves of controversy across the country in his zeal to open up public lands for development. The Government, Watt maintains, is an inept landlord; it neither manages property well nor puts it to its best use. "I want to open up as much land as I can," Watt says. "If you are interested in the consumer-taxpayer American, as we are, you want to make the land more beneficial to the individual taxpayer. That might mean just managing the land better in some cases; it might mean selling it off in others." Developers, real estate speculators and many fellow conservatives wholeheartedly support Watt's view. Indeed it is impossible to argue that the Government does not have too much land or that it does not mismanage some of what it has.

On the other side of the debate is a loose, inchoate confederation of conservationists, farmers and ranchers. The history of land in America, they say, has too often been one of pell-mell exploitation. It has been overgrazed, strip-mined, cut clear of timber and paved for shopping malls. Such ravages, they insist, must be prevented in the future. "We believe in the public lands," says Geoffrey Webb of the 25,000-member Friends of the Earth. "We strongly believe that they should remain public and should be maintained and managed for the public, not for the narrow interests of those who might want to mine coal or explore for oil, gas or minerals." Other opponents, while willing to concede that the sale of some surplus land is justified, fear that the Government may not act responsibly in the future. Their bugbear is that once the process of selling has begun, there is no way to guarantee that a hard-pressed or politically motivated Government might not deed to private owners what is so rightfully the public's.