As with the original Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s and 1980s, several western states, where the federal government owns well over one-third of land within the states, have begun to look to more local control of lands as an answer to federal indifference, mismanagement, and outright hostility. In at least one case — Utah — the state has initiated a lawsuit in an effort to wrest more control of lands out of federal hands.

The Los Angeles Times, in the socio-economic basket case known as California, dismissed the idea outright in an unsigned editorial, declaring the idea to be an affront against unfairly maligned federal supremacy. The Denver Post, meanwhile, offered last month a more evenhanded assessment, suggesting that the cost to the state of maintaining public lands — in the form of fire-fighting, forestry, and more — is too high to be worth it.