Conservationists celebrate the California desert's new national monuments at the Whitewater Preserve on May 5, 2016. Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun

 

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — Two years after a Nevada cattle rancher and his allies took up arms in protest of U.S. government grazing fees, Republican Party activists are asking that the feds return certain lands to the states. The proposal was included this July in the 2016 GOP platform — essentially a wish-list of legislation, a vision for the next president and Congress.

That’s a big deal in the West, where nearly half of the land is owned by the federal government. As of 2015, the Bureau of Land Management oversaw 248 million surface acres and approximately 700 million acres of subsurface mineral estates throughout the country.

The Republican proposal hasn’t gotten as much attention in California as in other states, but is certainly on the minds of some Golden State officials and tribal leaders as the presidential election approaches.

Bill Sapp, the San Bernardino National Forest tribal relations program manager, said 11 Southern California tribes have “traditional gathering” agreements to collect “subsistence items and basket weaving materials” that include acorns, nuts, cactus apples, and medicinal plants. Tribal members sometimes make requests for other items, which must be weighed against existing regulations and environmental laws.

“I think the federal government does a pretty good job of managing the land,” Sapp added. “We do the most good” with the resources available.

Though the GOP platform-drafters want to keep some public lands open to "appropriate activities like hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting," they did not specify which types of lands would be available for transfer. It's possible that tribal agreements in areas such as the San Bernardino National Forest could disappear or be rewritten if the idea ever wins favor in Washington, D.C. — one of several reasons why California’s Indian tribes aren’t thrilled about a potential Donald Trump presidency.

Click here for full-size PDF of the map.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is firmly opposed to the idea, calling instead for an expansion of public lands. “We certainly should not be giving in to this ideological argument from the right that we need to put more public lands in private hands,” she said at a press conference last year.

Trump’s position has varied over the last eight months.

In January, he told a hunting magazine, whose readers rely on the public grounds for sport, “I don’t like the idea because I want to keep the lands great, and you don’t know what the state is going to do.” He told a Las Vegas audience the following month: “It’s not a subject I know anything about.”

Then in May, his chief policy adviser, Sam Clovis, told the Associated Press that Trump would like to see a change in policy giving states and local governments more influence over how the land was managed. A “shared governance structure,” Clovis added, would allow for development around certain cities in the west and provide companies with better access to minerals.

Trump called on Congress to get “on board.” The candidate’s comments have been widely interpreted as an endorsement of eventually weakening, if not eliminating, federal controls over those lands.

Steve Stallings, a member of the San Diego County-based Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians, described the proposal as “counter-productive” — a land grab, in his view, intended to benefit developers and other private interests at the expense of the public and tribal members. California is home to more than 100 federally recognized tribes; dozens more are petitioning for “re-recognition,” and reservations are often carved out of federal lands.

In the mid-20th Century, the U.S. government attempted to break up reservations by moving Indians into more economically prosperous areas, thereby increasing their rate of assimilation. This policy of “termination and removal,” as it’s known, left many with the impression that their heritage was under attack. Those same policies were largely reversed in the late '60s and early '70s under President Richard Nixon, a Republican.

Nevertheless, the GOP’s latest proposal has an uncomfortable ring in Indian Country. “I don’t think you’ll find any tribe or major tribal organization that would support this,” said Stallings, who’s also chairman of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association.

Even in the Republican corners, one finds opposition to the proposal. A week before the GOP convention, Montana’s lone congressman, Ryan Zinke, resigned as a delegate. He echoed Trump’s position — that the lands could be better managed by local and state governments — but insisted that the federal government should maintain ownership.

Ranchers, including the Bundy family in Nevada, whose armed members stormed an eastern Oregon wildlife refuge last winter, contend that the U.S. government regulations — specifically those aimed at protecting endangered species — has made their jobs increasingly difficult.

"Federal ownership or management of land...places an economic burden on counties and local communities in terms of lost revenue to pay for things such as schools, police, and emergency services," the GOP platform reads. "It is absurd to think that all that acreage must remain under the absentee ownership or management of official Washington."

The platform also calls for letting state regulators determine their own energy policy and designate monuments for preservation. Earlier this year, President Obama signed executive orders that set aside 1.8 million acres of California desert for permanent conservation. Competing bills in Congress had stalled — one of which, put forth by Republican Rep. Paul Cook, would have opened up 10% of the proposed Mojave Trails National Monument to new mining.

Follow Jesse Marx on Twitter: @marxjesse