The Sagebrush Rebellion: A response to federal land policy in the west

Excerpt

EVEN the most ardent supporters of reduced federal land holdings in the West could not have envisioned the chain of events that followed passage of A.B. 413 by the Nevada Legislature in 1979. A.B. 413 in effect gave birth to the Sagebrush Rebellion by claiming state ownership of all unreserved and unappropriated public lands within Nevada under the control of the federal Bureau of Land Management.

BLM, a U.S. Department of the Interior agency, currently manages 49 million acres (69 percent) in the state. Almost 87 percent of Nevada's land area is under the control of some federal agency.

Until Nevada's claim to these vast acreages is resolved by Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court, the lands in question, commonly referred to as the public domain, will continue to be managed by BLM. Also, we must note that the Sagebrush Bebellion, so far as Nevada is concerned, does not involve national parks or monuments, wildlife refuges, national forests, defense establishments, Indian reservations, or lands for federal buildings.

A change in policy

Public domain lands in almost all cases have never been privately owned. They are lands that came to the United States …