Ancap Good News: Wyoming threatens to sell parks to pay for education

Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal is threatening to sell some of one of America's most beautiful national parks unless President Barack Obama's administration comes up with more money to pay for education in the financially troubled state.

He says he will auction land valued at $US125 million ($136 million) in the Grand Teton National Park.

Part of the park was donated by John Rockefeller jnr. Other parts belong to the state government, including two parcels of about 550 hectares designated as school-trust lands to be ''managed for maximum profit'' to generate funds for education in Wyoming.

The state raises only about $US3000 a year from leasing the land to a cattle farmer. Officials have suggested that the property might make a nice site for a ski lodge.

Mr Freudenthal wrote to the Interior Department asking the federal government to trade the park land for mineral royalties. ''If the federal government won't dance with us, we will go look for another partner,'' he said. ''The purpose is to force the federal government to come to the table.''

Washington said it was negotiating, but Mr Freudenthal said the issue had dragged on for a decade. ''The way the federal government has treated us to date is that we are like the people who own the land, but they figure there isn't anything else they can do with it,'' he said.

Previous negotiations led Washington to offer about 320,000 hectares of federal land in a swap but state officials rejected it as ''trash land'' that they said was not worth nearly

as much as their ''prime, in-park

real estate''.

''I admit we aren't as bright as those boys on the Potomac,'' Mr Freudenthal said. ''But this ain't our first county fair.''

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Ancap Good News: Wyoming threatens to sell parks to pay for education

Ancap Good News: Wyoming threatens to sell parks to pay for education

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