I am proud to be a leader in Utah's effort to reclaim our right to own and control federal public lands within our State. Areas traditionally open to the public on federally-controlled lands are being closed, restricting access to recreation, agriculture, hunting and fishing, energy development and to School and Institutional Trust Lands that help fund public education. In 1976, the federal government changed a 200-year-old policy of selling federal public lands into private ownership or transferring them to the states. This change in policy primarily affected only the Western States because most federal lands in states east of the Rockies had already been transferred into private or state ownership. The promises made to the Western States at statehood in our Enabling Act Compacts are identical to states preceding the West in statehood. The promises are the same. Why haven't the promises been kept?
The federal government's obligation was to eventually extinguish title to all federal public lands within the states (primarily lands now managed by the BLM and Forest Service). These promises were kept with states east of the Rockies and to Hawaii, but not to the Western States. Now after 116 years of government entanglements and burdensome regulation since Utah's statehood, our State sees no other remedy than to take over management responsibilities and ownership of federal public lands in our State.
Four federal agencies (BLM, Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife, National Parks) now control 623 million acres of land in the United States. That's 27% of our nation's landmass. That's more than all the landmass in the countries of France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Italy, United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands and Belgium combined. Most of the land under federal control is in the western states. On average, 52% of the land in the 11 Western States is federally controlled compared to 4% in the other states.
Two-thirds of Utah's land is under federal control. That's one of the reasons we struggle funding education. The federal government pays no property tax on that land. Payments in lieu of taxes (PILT) are made, but only a fraction of what the State would receive if the federal government paid property tax on its federally controlled land in Utah.
I've been focusing my effort on growing our School and Institutional Trust Lands fund. Lands were set aside in Utah at statehood for the benefit of educating our children. These lands are managed by a State agency called the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA). The education trust fund has grown from $80 Million to over $1.3 Billion since 1994 when SITLA was created to better manage our school trust lands. Unfortunately, the school trust fund could be at least triple that amount if it were not hampered by federal policies restricting access to and optimum development of school trust lands. I intend to spend the remainder of my days in the Legislature working to improve education funding from the school trust lands, to reclaim Utah's right to own and manage the land within our borders and to improve our State's economy through development of our State's abundant natural resources and energy resources. It is my niche and an area I believe I can impact. The "Best Managed State" in the Nation can certainly manage our lands for conservation, access to open space, recreation, wildlife management, agriculture and responsible management of natural resources better than our federal landlord. We owe it to the children of Utah now and in the future to make this effort.
Please click the link below for more information on Utah's efforts to reclaim its public lands.
