The Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Partnership—an outfit consisting of hunting and fishing enthusiasts—called H.R. 3650 an "overt attempt to undermine public land ownership." Its president, Whit Fosburgh, added: "Make no mistake, these are the first votes on legislation that would legitimize the wholesale transfer or sale of America’s public lands."

Ninety four percent of people in this country live within 50 miles of public lands they can use. We own these lands! They are the birthright of our children and generations of Americans to come.

While under this legislation it is not yet possible to sell national parks, national monuments and national preserves, which enjoy extraordinary legal protection, it opens the door to selling off national forests, wildlife refuges and wilderness areas.

The states, which under this wrongheaded measure would receive these federal lands, are mostly disinclined and financially unable to manage them properly. Few could even afford the multi-million-dollar firefighting budgets required. Thus most or all the states would sell to timber, mining, grazing corporations for a one-off profit.

Meantime, the current sustainable and highly lucrative uses of our lands, such as outdoor recreation and tourism, would be forever forfeit.

As an American you own 670 million acres of wildlands. Let’s keep them beautiful, productive, healthy…. and ours!