Utah Reclaims Federal Lands

Utah to seize own land from government, challenge federal dominance of Western states, Posted on December 10, 2014 Written by washingtontimes.com

‘Trans­fer of Pub­lic Lands Act’ demands Wash­ing­ton relin­quish 31.2 mil­lion acres by Dec. 31

In three weeks, Utah intends to seize con­trol of 31.2 mil­lion acres of its own land now under the con­trol of the fed­eral gov­ern­ment. At least, that’s the plan.

In an unprece­dented chal­lenge to fed­eral dom­i­nance of West­ern state lands, Utah Gov. Gary Her­bert in 2012 signed the “Trans­fer of Pub­lic Lands Act,” which demands that Wash­ing­ton relin­quish its hold on the land, which rep­re­sents more than half of the state’s 54.3 mil­lion acres, by Dec. 31.

So far, how­ever, the fed­eral gov­ern­ment hasn’t given any indi­ca­tion that it plans to coop­er­ate. Still, state Rep. Ken Ivory, who spon­sored the leg­is­la­tion, isn’t deterred.

“That’s what you do any time you’re nego­ti­at­ing with a part­ner. You set a date,” said Mr. Ivory. “Unfor­tu­nately, our fed­eral part­ner has decided they don’t want to nego­ti­ate in good faith. So we’ll move for­ward with the four-step plan that the gov­er­nor laid out.”

In other words, there won’t be any escort­ing of fed­eral offi­cials by state troop­ers to the east­ern bor­der. Instead, he said, state offi­cials will pro­ceed with a pro­gram of edu­ca­tion, nego­ti­a­tion, leg­is­la­tion and litigation.

“We’re going to move for­ward and use all the resources at our dis­posal,” said Mr. Ivory, who also heads the Amer­i­can Lands Coun­cil, which advo­cates the relin­quish­ing of fed­eral lands to the con­trol of the states.

 With the 2012 law, Utah placed itself on the cut­ting edge of the heated debate over pub­lic lands in the West. The fed­eral gov­ern­ment con­trols more than 50 per­cent of the land west of Kansas — in Utah’s case, it’s 64.5 per­cent, a sit­u­a­tion that has increas­ingly resulted in ten­sions across the Rocky Moun­tain West.

Those in favor of the state tak­ing con­trol of fed­eral lands were buoyed by a report Mon­day that con­cluded the idea was finan­cially fea­si­ble. Enti­tled “An Analy­sis of a Trans­fer of Fed­eral Lands to the State of Utah,” the 784-page analy­sis found that Utah was capa­ble of man­ag­ing that prop­erty, now under the con­trol of the Bureau of Land Man­age­ment and For­est Service.

“I expect that pub­lic dis­cus­sion will be well served by this report. It shows the com­plex­i­ties and con­nec­tions between Utah’s robust econ­omy and the great qual­ity of life Uta­hans enjoy,” Mr. Her­bert said in a statement.

The report, con­ducted over 18 months by ana­lysts at three state uni­ver­si­ties, found that Utah would incur an addi­tional $280 mil­lion in costs to man­age the lands, but would bring in some $331.7 mil­lion in roy­al­ties from min­eral resources devel­op­ment, mainly oil and gas. Cur­rently Utah receives only half the roy­al­ties from drilling that is allowed on fed­eral lands inside its borders.

The study also found that while small amounts of fed­eral own­er­ship could stim­u­late eco­nomic growth in coun­ties, such man­age­ment becomes a “drag” on most coun­ties after they reach 40 per­cent to 45 per­cent own­er­ship, adding that, “twenty of Utah’s 29 coun­ties exceed this threshold.”

“The find­ings of this report con­firm that the state is more than capa­ble of tak­ing on the man­age­ment of these lands,” said Rep. Rob Bishop, Utah Repub­li­can, in a state­ment. “This data will be a help­ful resource as we con­tinue to work toward resolv­ing some of the biggest chal­lenges fac­ing pub­lic lands pol­icy in the state.”

Green oppo­si­tion

On the other side of the debate is the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment, led by the South­ern Utah Wilder­ness Alliance, which argues that trans­fer­ring fed­eral lands to state con­trol “makes it harder to pro­tect Utah’s wild lands for all Amer­i­cans.” Wash­ing­ton, envi­ron­men­tal­ists argue, is a bet­ter stew­ard of Utah’s nat­ural riches than Salt Lake City.

Staff attor­ney David Gar­bett argues that the report shows Utah would be unable to afford man­ag­ing the fed­eral lands with­out sell­ing them or sub­ject­ing them to heavy development.

“When will the leg­is­la­ture real­ize that the pub­lic does not want to see the Wasatch Moun­tains bar­ri­caded with ‘No Tres­pass­ing’ signs, the Book Cliffs lost to tar sand strip mines or Arches National Park ringed with oil and gas devel­op­ment?” he said in a statement.

The group launched a radio and tele­vi­sion cam­paign this week aimed at drum­ming up oppo­si­tion to the plan, describ­ing it as a “land grab.” The ads allege that man­ag­ing the lands would be so costly that Utah would be forced to sell or lease them to pri­vate developers.

“But that means Uta­hans would lose access to the lands that formed our her­itage,” says the tele­vi­sion ad, which shows peo­ple fish­ing and horse­back rid­ing. “Seiz­ing pub­lic lands: A bad idea we can’t afford.”

Mr. Ivory dis­missed the attacks as “fear tac­tics,” point­ing out that the law includes only lands des­ig­nated for mul­ti­ple use — in other words, eco­nomic devel­op­ment — and not national parks or national monuments.

“They’re try­ing to get peo­ple to think that the sky is falling, and it’s just not,” Mr. Ivory said. “In fact, Utah passed the only state wilder­ness act so that, as the lands are trans­ferred, we des­ig­nate the unique her­itage sites as state wilder­ness to be pro­tected under the guide­lines the state establishes.”

He pointed to the report, which he says shows “clearly Utah can afford to do this with­out sell­ing off any land. None of that is contemplated.”

“These are tac­tics by those who just want to keep mak­ing money by suing the fed­eral gov­ern­ment,” Mr. Ivory said, refer­ring to envi­ron­men­tal groups.

He pointed out that trans­fer­ring fed­eral lands to state con­trol has the sup­port of the Amer­i­can Farm Bureau, the National Asso­ci­a­tion of Coun­ties and the Repub­li­can National Com­mit­tee. A half-dozen West­ern states are expected to con­sider sim­i­lar pro­pos­als in next year’s leg­isla­tive ses­sion, while bills have been intro­duced in Con­gress to sup­port the idea.

For­mer Inte­rior Sec­re­tary Ken Salazar slammed the Utah leg­is­la­tion in 2012, say­ing it “defied com­mon sense,” and accused law­mak­ers of play­ing politics.

As far as Mr. Ivory is con­cerned, how­ever, shift­ing man­age­ment to the states would be far prefer­able than keep­ing the lands under the increas­ingly tight con­trol of the fed­eral government.

“Under increas­ing fed­eral con­trol, access is being restricted. The health of the land is dimin­ish­ing hor­ri­bly. And the pro­duc­tiv­ity is depressed,” Mr. Ivory said. “This is the only way to get bet­ter access, bet­ter health and bet­ter productivity.”

Related Posts

• Utah to Feds: Stop Enforc­ing Our Laws
• BLM and USFS Lack Enforce­ment Author­ity on Fed­er­ally Man­aged Lands
• West­ern law­mak­ers gather in Utah to talk fed­eral land takeover
• The Gov­ern­ment Is Con­trol­ling Pri­vate Prop­erty to Save Frog Species Not Seen in 50 Years
• The Dis­ap­pear­ing States
   
  Source:http://agenda21news.com/2014/12/utah-seize-land-government-challenge-federal-dominance-western-states/#more-4073
  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/3/utah-to-seize-own-land-from-government-challenge-f/?page=2#ixzz3LT9kE0Hk
  Comments
  Utah is finally exercising its 10^th Amendment Rights to help preserve and restore the US Constitution, which prohibits the federal government from owning land.  In the 1870s, the federal government began its land seizure activity and now owns 30% of the US land mass.  This “ownership” was not achieved by the federal government purchasing the land; it has always been a land grab done with the complicity of state legislators. Liberals will argue that the federal government has been contracted by the states (free of charge) to “administer” these lands.  We now have federal departments seizing more private land in these states in a double violation of property rights and Constitutional constraints.  We also need to put this land to good use. 
  Agenda 21 implementation has prompted the federal government to close large sections of federal lands to human use, as they begin to implement the “Wilding” project. It’s past time to remove this abuse from the states.
  Hopefully Utah will inspire the other western states to follow suit.  The decades of federal administration of these lands has resulted in forest mismanagement and annual wildfires. I think the states can figure out how to improve this situation by opening up these forests to responsible tree harvesting and opening up the land for oil, gas and mineral extraction, farming and ranching.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader