Problem federalnej własności ziem publicznych na zachodzie USA

Abstract

U.S. Federal government is an owner of more than 28% of area of the country. This has a big impact on a social and economic life, especially because it is a significant disproportion in treatment between Western and Eastern states by U.S. C ongress. This problem has lasted for decades. The federal ownership of public lands began when 13 mother-states ceded their rights to lands west from the Mississippi River after Treaty of Paris had been enacted in 1783. The initial federal policy to dispose public lands into new-formed states and privet individuals was formally ended in 1976 when the Congress enacted Federal Land Policy and Management Act . Since this moment it has been the increased dispute between federal government and state governments. In 2012, Utah passed Transfer of Public Lands and Related Study , which has opened a new chapter in this controversy because of using different arguments to the advantage of transferring rights to public lands than previous ones. TPLA bases on a contract theory which should be applicable to Utah’s Enabling Act of 1894. This article shows a general problem of the federal ownership in lights of economic, historic, ecological and law arguments. These latter ones refer to the arguments from TPLA.