In February, the House passed a package of ten bills that give away or sell Federal land, most of them so that private interests can use our land for profit.     To contribute to Congressional Dish, please use the PayPal link below. Thank you.   HR 2954: Public Access & Lands Improvement Act The Congressional Budget Office analysis of HR 2954 RAUL GRIJALVA (AZ):" Let's be clear: we are talking here about Federal property, that is, property owned by all Americans. The land in question in Escambia County, Florida; Anchorage, Alaska; Fernley, Nevada; Cape Hatteras, North Carolina; Yellowstone and Grand Teton and the land on which Federal grazing occurs, the land impacted by this package is Federal land, owned by each and every American taxpayer. In the case of these land transfers, the Federal Government gave the land, gave it to a local community as a means of Federal support, and the only requirement, in most cases, was that the land always be used for public purposes. As long as it is a park or a school or a fire station, it is yours, for free. What these bills do is end those public purpose requirements. The communities want to use these lands for private profit. They want to close them to the public, in many cases. This is not a land grab by Uncle Sam. This is not some silly scheme by the Feds to harm local communities and to use their power to hold down the tax-payers and keep the public out. This is a community asking to make money off land that was owned by all Americans, and it is the job of Congress to decide if that is a good idea or not. TITLE I: Florida land transfer Allows Escambia County, FL to give away it's title, right, and/or interest in Santa Rosa Island "to any person or entity", without restrictions. Escambia County has 2 years to transfer its rights, title, and interest in its property that falls within Santa Rosa Country to Santa Rosa County. The transfer is final and "shall terminate" "any regulation of Santa Rosa County by Escambia County" RAUL GRIJALVA (AZ): "This is public land, not land to give away and, as stated before, over and over again, be dredged and used for a harbor for potential windfall profit." The concern raised by Raul Grijalva is over the possible dredging of Navarre Pass. A pass was dredged for boats in 1965 but was almost immediately destroyed by Hurricane Betsy. In 1968, a permit to re-dredge the pass was denied. The fighting over this has continued ever since. From what I can gather, Santa Rosa county wants to dredge the pass again but Escambia County does not. Both counties currently get a vote on this issue. Terminating any regulation of Santa Rosa County by Escambia County could potentially take Escambia's vote away and allow the pass to be dredged. TITLE II: Transfer of Federal land rights to the City of Anchorage Section 203: Secretary of the Interior will give all rights to land it currently leases to the City of Anchorage "to enable economic development" of that land. City of Anchorage will pay all costs. TITLE III: Sale of Federal land to Fernley, Nevada Introduced by Mark Amodei (NV-2) Section 302: Forces the Secretary of Interior to process a sale of 9,407 acres of Federal land to the City of Fernley in Nevada. Secretary of Interior will determine the "fair market price" CBO estimate's that to be $3,500 per acre = almost $33 million worth of land The map of the land will be available for public inspection, but it doesn't say it has to be available before the sale is completed. The land transfer will not be considered a "major Federal action", which exempts it from evaluation under the National Environmental Policy Act Section 303: Releases the Federal government from any liability from "the presence, release, or threat of release of any hazardous substance, pollutant, contaminant, petroleum product (or derivative of a petroleum product of any kind), solid waste, mine materials… on the Federal land in existence on or before the date of conveyance." Section 304: Ap