Thursday, December 11, 2014

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.”
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