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SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

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The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

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Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

Vacation Plans and Public Lands: Complicated Relationships Ahead?

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Monday, May 18, 2015   

AUGUSTA, Maine – Summer vacation adventures on public lands could change dramatically if the push to turn federal lands over to state control succeeds.

Jamie Williams, president of The Wilderness Society, warns allowing state control would lock up lands for private development, and other parcels would be sold by states to pay for managing additional land.

"This is a terrible idea that is totally out of sync with the way Americans value our parks, our forests and wildlife refuges,” Williams states. “They don't want to see their lands turned over to states and sold to the highest bidder."

There have been moves in both the U.S. House and Senate to turn over federal lands to states.

Williams says the push to privatize public lands originates with special interests and their allies in Congress, and could bring the biggest changes to lands in the West.

Backers of the idea maintain the states would be better managers of federal properties, and say there is a legal precedent for state control.

John Leshy, a professor of real property law at University of California Hastings, counters there's a long history of court decisions affirming the federal government's rights to hold land, and that this type of case would probably be laughed out of court.

Leshy is a former chief counsel of the U.S. Interior Department.

"It has nothing to do with the law,” he says. “It's not a legal claim. It's all about politics – I mean, it's all about stirring up the base, tapping into the anxiety or hatred or whatever you want to call it, that some people have about federal ownership of land in the West."

Williams says the move for state seizure of public lands is overshadowing the urgent need to reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund – a program that helps pay for parks, trails, baseball fields and more, in just about every county in the country.

"For 50 years, this program has played an essential role, protecting places people love and getting Americans outdoors," he stresses.

The fund expires at the end of September unless Congress takes action.





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