The Interior Department is giving Arizona and 23 other states a total of $560 million to start cleaning high-priority derelict oil and gas wells abandoned on state and private land, the department said August 25. 

Rep. Mark Finchem and Sen. Sonny Borrelli have taken a backward and myopic view of our shared public lands, while at the same time directly infringing on the rights of private landowners. That’s no small accomplishment.

Fearing an eroding tax base, two Republican legislators are leading efforts to block private individuals from transferring property to the federal government.

Back in the mid-1990s, Republican Sen. Sylvia Allen was a rebel. A Sagebrush Rebel. Long before she was a state lawmaker, Allen was pushing back against environmentalists and the federal government as part of a long-standing movement to force the federal government to turn over federally-managed lands to the Western states.

Western states need to band together to get the federal government to relinquish control of lands in Arizona and elsewhere, a Utah legislator told a group of Arizona lawmakers Wednesday morning.

Neither the governor’s veto, nor a ballot measure’s resounding defeat at the polls will stop Sen. Al Melvin from reviving a plan to convert federal land to state land.

Another "sagebrush rebellion" is brewing with Arizona possibly laying claim to 25 million acres of federal land. Supporters of the modern day land grab say federal agencies have mismanaged the land and blocked access to natural resources while depriving the state of jobs and revenue from businesses ready to develop those resources.