Poll: Most Westerners Don’t Want Federal Lands Turned Over To States

A survey released Monday found that more than half of residents in the western interior of the U.S. are against handing federal public lands back to individual states—a notion in conflict with the armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon.

The sixth annual Colorado College Conservation in the West poll found that 58 percent of those surveyed in seven western states opposed giving control of national public lands to state governments or private entities. The poll found opposition was highest in Arizona (65 percent) and New Mexico (63 percent).

The poll was conducted in December, before armed militiamen led by Ammon Bundy took over an unoccupied federal building on Jan. 2 in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, located in the desert of eastern Oregon.

This was the first year in the survey’s history that pollsters asked voters about efforts to give federal public lands to state governments.

Furthermore, the poll found 60 percent of those surveyed opposed selling federal land holdings to reduce budget deficits.

When specifically asked about support for Cliven Bundy, Ammon Bundy’s father, only 30 percent of respondents in Nevada voiced support for the local rancher. Cliven Bundy sparked an armed standoff with federal officers from the Bureau of Land Management in April 2014 after failing to pay grazing fees for two decades.

The poll was conducted among 2,800 voters in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming (400 in each state) from Dec. 5-6 and Dec. 9-15. Questions were asked in both English and Spanish. The poll had a margin of error of 2.74 percentage points overall and 4.9 percentage points statewide.