American State-Owned Energy, Forestry, and Mining Companies?

Delta Force

Banned
The United States has had city owned utilities such as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and federally owned utilities such as the Tennessee Valley Authority and Bonneville Power Administration. Tennessee at one point operated Brushy Mountain State Prison, which was built so that convicts could mine a nearby coal deposit, and at one point the University of Austin was authorized to buy, own, and lease lands for petroleum and mineral development to finance the Permanent University Fund. For more value-added industrial applications, North Dakota even has the North Dakota Mill and Elevator, which is the largest grain mill in the United States and produces flour and bread/pancake mixes.

How plausible would it be for an American state to do things on a much larger scale, creating a firm that would directly use resources on public lands owned by the state, perhaps expanding into operations on private and federal lands like other companies? Could it even be something done in more libertarian states as a way to reduce taxes, since the government could receive revenues from state-owned firms?
 

Delta Force

Banned
Could some or all of this happen in Louisiana under Huey Long? He started his career out attacking Standard Oil and the utilities, and formed a shell company that subleased state lands to the major petroleum companies to raise money for political campaigns. There was also Henry E. Hardtner, who established the Urania Lumber Company which practiced modern forestry techniques to create optimal sustainable lumber yields.

Texas could be another option. Because Texas was originally an independent republic it has a very high percentage of state owned land and also has ownership of all waters up to nine miles offshore (all other states are three miles out, although Florida's Gulf Coast is also nine miles).

Perhaps the cities of California could try to acquire develop the petroleum and later natural deposits within their boundaries as an offshoot of their municipal utility systems. Los Angeles itself was built on top of one of the largest petroleum deposits in the United States, and perhaps the city could end up developing a full blown integrated energy and water utility system.
 
Top