Economic Outlook

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The lumber companies control more than a three-year supply of uncut timber on the public lands. Yet the Administration subsidizes even more sales—in virgin areas that might remain wilderness. Sixteen and onehalf billion tons of coal are under lease to private industry—enough to last two centuries at the present rate of production. Yet the Administration ... wants vastly expanded coal leasing.

In handing over the public resources to private interests, the Reagan Administration is devastatingly imprudent. More than that, it is betraying the agreement between the American people and their government - expressed in many laws-that the government will shield the public lands from abuse, develop commercial resources in a prudent balanced way, and protect noncommercial resources for lasting use.

The Administration's energy policy has been to eliminate virtually every program that provides direct benefits to individuals and small businesses seeking to conserve energy or use solar energy, while protecting billions of dollars in subsidies for nuclear power, synthetic fuels, and the oil industry.

The Administration is blind to the dangers of nuclear power. It has withdrawn safeguards against nuclear proliferation and, seeking a quick solution convenient for industry, has overridden a cautious process to deal with nuclear waste disposal. The Administration is considering the use of fuel from nuclear powerplants to make nuclear weapons, erasing the distinction drawn by President Eisenhower between Atoms for Peace and weapons for nuclear war.

The Reagan Administration's approach to the environment and natural resources is not conservative; it is radical. Conservatives have recognized and helped to shape the essential role of government in conservation of the air, water and land we all share. Without government intervention, for example, the company that voluntarily refrains from dumping wastes into a stream will be at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis another company that freely uses public waters as a private sewer. But the Administration sees government regulation of private pollution simply as an inconvenience for industry—a nuisance that should be reduced or eliminated.

Real free market principles are unpalatable to the Reaganite Sagebrush Rebels as well. They want the Federal Government to stop managing the public lands. So the Administration is turning over management of public rangeland to ranchers who pay grazing fees on public lands that are one-fifth the fees charged for private lands. This not only costs the nation money, but invites overgrazing, which has seriously damaged more than half the public range. Likewise, western farmers irrigating with water from federal dams pay one-fifth or less of the cost. Taxpayers pay the rest. The Administration has increased the budget for western water projects.

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