The state of Nevada has sold 2.7 million acres (99.98 percent) of its state land had and now retains only a paltry 3,000 acres of its original school trust lands. So the acres they received at statehood, got auctioned, sold and divided and became the Las Vegas Strip. How many acres of that 2.7 million does the state still have? At most (no official number can be found) 35,000 acres. Out of 2.7 MILLION!

Roughly 700,000 acres of state land in Idaho are already currently closed to public access. Idaho has already sold over 1.5 million acres of the state land which it was originally granted, which amounts to over 30 percent of all state lands it has owned.

Wisconsin had 3.25 million acres of trust land. They have about 75,000 left!

I agree with this:

"I am all for private companies providing resources for profits however I am not for further subsidization of private companies by the American tax payers. Look deep and that is the obvious motivation and if it isn't then these companies are fools for spending millions lobbing for it.

First the states have a worse record of managing lands in many cases make the Feds looks adept in land Management. Further more they (states) have less money and resources then the fed and their prognoses for any better or cheaper management with similar public access and use is almost impossible.

The second reason is that Corporations understand full well they the states can not afford to manage these lands and have history huge sell offs that have taken place in the past. The amount of lobbying that is taken place is insane. The motivations are clear and again it becomes a tax pay subsidizing corporate profits."