A cadre of policy wonks from some ultra-conservative
think tanks decended on Capitol Hill Jan. 11 to tell sympathetic
Republicans how they’d strip the budgets of the Department of
Interior and the Forest Service. Representatives of the Heritage
Foundation, Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy and
Citizens Against Government Waste urged legislators
to:
* turn over to the states most of the lands
now in national parks, national forests, national wildlife refuges
and wilderness areas (with the exception of crown jewels like
Yellowstone);
* eliminate local zoning
regulations on land use;
* abolish all federal
energy conservation programs;
* eliminate the
Department of Energy, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Geological
Survey, and Bureau of Mines;
* and charge people
to enter the U.S. Capitol.
“This is a very stark
statement about what the Newtonian revolution may be about,” says
Colorado Rep. David Skaggs, D. “It is marketism run rampant – if we
can charge for it, let’s do it.” In Colorado, Skaggs says, the
proposals could mean federal land that amounts to more than
one-third of Colorado could be turned over to state government or
sold to private interests.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A Newtonian vision.
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