With the recent news of Republicans wanting to move federal lands into state hands in the Western US this topic is becoming relevant.
Listening to the voices speaking out I am hearing a few common themes:
- we don’t want these lands to lose federal protections.
- states can not afford the cost of land management.
- states would have to sell the lands as soon as they received them because they can not afford them.
- how would the federal government be compensated for this transfer?
The common thread holding most of these voices together is money. Can these states afford to maintain the lands if they acquired them from the federal government?
What I am looking for is expanded information, on a state by state level of ALL money that a state (residents, corporations, any entity of that state) pays to the federal government compared to how much it receives in actual dollars. Not percentages, not per capita. I am also looking for the same in reverse, how much does each state receive from the federal government. Bonus points if data has a breakdown for revenue/taxes based on use of federal lands (I.e. hunting/fishing revenue).
The more detailed the information the better.
Reason: I am trying to collect enough information to have an informed opinion of the financial side of the land transfer question. I want to know in a strict financial sense if these states could afford to maintain the lands if they were given compete ownership (and revenues) of said lands.
What I expect to find: energy rich states can afford it while energy poor states can not.