Clive Bundy and my grandchildren

Clive Bundy, the southern Nevada rancher and self-styled, mouse that roared, is a classic example of a beneficiary of regulatory capture (see definition below). Years ago someone in the Las Vegas District office or Nevada State Office of the BLM was seduced into being an active participant, as a regulator, in regulatory capture. That person, probably a manager, chose to ignore Bundy's repeated refusal to pay for grazing fees. The fees, fines, and interest grew until Clive owes over a million dollars. He refuses to pay the government. BLM seems to have backed off. Now he and his likewise arrogant and misinformed followers want to pull federal ownership of public lands and put them in the hands of the State. The same movement is occurring in Utah and other western states.

The term public lands implies ownership by all American citizens therefore Clive doesn't have any more right to  lay claim to ownership of public land as do any of my grandchildren. He and they are just joint share-holders in public land ownership. Clearly, leadership in our state does not understand the concept, understand that they must have the other millions of share-holders in the rest of the country, vote yes to the proposal to give federal public land to the states. A part of revenue produced by the federal government (BLM and possibly the USFS) comes back to the states in the form of PILT--Payment in Lieu of Taxes. Millions of dollars, annually, more than could be produced by states managing public lands.

It is easy to point to countless examples of regulatory capture in federal agencies. The most visible are the BLM and the USFS, at least in the west. These agencies have been co-opted by special interests to the point that public participation is an exercise in futility. The agencies follow the regulations as written, including the part about public participation. The time that citizens can participate in the process is almost after the fact. It should be upfront, not after draft documents are prepared. The agencies are puzzled by the lack of participation and the intensity and frequency of adverse legal actions by the public.
But regulatory capture is not just a federal issue, it occurs in all levels of government, including the smallest of communities. The net result is frustration about the waste of public tax dollars, poor products (roads, bridges, etc) produced by contractors, overgrazing, and increased cynicism by the public.


“Regulatory capture” occurs when special interests co-opt policymakers or political bodies — regulatory agencies, in particular — to further their own ends. Technology Liberation Front http://techliberation.com/about/

But before I'm branded as a card carrying libertarian, because I use this site as a reference, it is only because the site has the best definition of Regulatory Capture AKA Capture Theory. 

Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom: A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People (1913) at 201-202:

“If the government is to tell big business men how to run their business, then don’t you see that big business men have to get closer to the government even than they are now? Don’t you see that they must capture the government, in order not to be restrained too much by it? Must capture the government? They have already captured it. Are you going to invite those inside to stay? They don’t have to get there. They are there.”