GOP PLATFORM wants to SELL OFF FEDERAL PARKS AND LANDS.

https://thinkprogress.org/gop-platform-proposes-to-get-rid-of-national-parks-and-national-forests-5d17bb3eee07#.qmnf6ep06

this provision in the Republican Party’s platform reflects the growing influence of and ideological alliance between several anti-park members of the GOP and anti-government extremists, led by Cliven Bundy, who dispute the federal government’s authority over national public lands.

“Congress shall immediately pass universal legislation providing a timely and orderly mechanism requiring the federal government to convey certain federally controlled public lands to the states,” reads the adopted language. “We call upon all national and state leaders and representatives to exert their utmost power and influence to urge the transfer of those lands identified.”

The provision calls for an immediate full-scale disposal of “certain” public lands, without defining which lands it would apply to, leaving national parks, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges, and national forests apparently up for grabs and vulnerable to development, privatization, or transfer to state ownership.

The Koch Brothers Are Now Funding The Bundy Land Seizure Agenda
CREDIT: AP Photo/Rick Bowmer The political network of the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch signaled…thinkprogress.org

“That’s a very broad brush to basically say we’re going to turn over all federal lands to states; some states don’t have the resources to handle it,” said West Virginia state Senator and committee delegate Vic Sprouse, who was pushing for a similar provision, but with milder language. He said this more extreme language would instead “willy-nilly” turn over federal property without regard to the type of land or willingness of the state to manage it.

Though public land disposal language was also present in the GOP’s 2012platform, the position takes on new meaning in the wake of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge takeover earlier this year. The now-indicted leaders of the takeover, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, and other extremists present at the refuge similarly demanded that the U.S. government give up authority over national public lands in the West.