H.C.R. 13 Enrolled

             1     

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON TRANSFER OF PUBLIC

             2     
LANDS ACT

             3     
2014 GENERAL SESSION

             4     
STATE OF UTAH

             5     
Chief Sponsor: Michael E. Noel

             6     
Senate Sponsor: David P. Hinkins

             7     
             8      LONG TITLE
             9      General Description:
             10          This concurrent resolution of the Legislature and the Governor calls upon the federal
             11      government to honor the promises that it honored with all states east of Colorado and
             12      transfer title of public lands to all willing western states.
             13      Highlighted Provisions:
             14          This resolution:
             15          .    calls upon the federal government to honor the promises that it honored with all
             16      states east of Colorado and transfer title of public lands to all willing western states;
             17          .    calls upon national and state government leaders to exert their utmost power and
             18      influence to urge the imminent transfer of public lands to all willing western states
             19      for the benefit of these western states and for the nation as a whole;
             20          .    strongly urges the members of Utah's congressional delegation to immediately
             21      sponsor legislation in the United States House of Representatives and the United
             22      States Senate that transfers ownership and title of the public lands within the state of
             23      Utah and any other western state that wishes to be included in the legislation; and
             24          .    urges the members of Utah's congressional delegation to use the proposed
             25      introduction of legislation to transfer title and ownership of public lands as an
             26      opportunity to educate their colleagues regarding the importance of the legislation
             27      and to begin the process of obtaining cosponsors for the bill and support from the
             28      numerous individuals that will be positively affected by the transfer of these public
             29      lands to state ownership and control.


             30      Special Clauses:
             31          None
             32     
             33      Be it resolved by the Legislature of the state of Utah, the Governor concurring therein:
             34          WHEREAS, the federal government promised all newly created states, in their
             35      statehood enabling contracts, that it would transfer title of the public lands it held within the
             36      borders of those states;
             37          WHEREAS, this promise is the same for all states east and west of Colorado;
             38          WHEREAS, the federal government has honored this promise with Hawaii and all
             39      states east of Colorado and today controls, on average, less than 5% of the lands in those states;
             40          WHEREAS, the federal government has failed to honor this same promise with
             41      Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Washington,
             42      Oregon, California, and Alaska and today still controls more than 50% of all lands in these
             43      states, including more than 80% of the state of Nevada;
             44          WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court declared the statehood enabling act
             45      contracts to be "solemn compacts" with enforceable rights and obligations on both sides;
             46          WHEREAS, in 1976, the United States Congress ended its nearly 200-year public
             47      policy of beneficially transferring ownership of public lands by passing the Federal Land Policy
             48      and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA);
             49          WHEREAS, public lands previously held in trust for the individual states were
             50      managed for their resource value prior to the passage of FLPMA;
             51          WHEREAS, since the passage of FLPMA, the public lands of western states are instead
             52      being perpetually managed for their conservation value;
             53          WHEREAS, as long as these lands are managed only for their conservation value, local,
             54      state, and national economies will be adversely impacted by the loss of use of the natural
             55      resources connected to these lands;
             56          WHEREAS, Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT), Secure Rural Schools (SRS), and other
             57      public offsets are financially inadequate to compensate for that loss, have been unreliably


             58      funded, and do not adequately compensate the states for the breach of their enabling acts;
             59          WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court, in Hawaii et al. v. Office of Hawaiian
             60      Affairs (07-1372), concluded that Congress cannot, by subsequent, unilateral action, alter or
             61      diminish the rights conferred upon a state in consequence of its admission to the Union;
             62          WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court further declared in the same case that
             63      Congress does not have the authority to unilaterally change these statehood promises, known as
             64      enabling acts, particularly "where virtually all of a State's public lands . . . are at stake";
             65          WHEREAS, under the guise of sequestration and to cut federal expenses, the federal
             66      government is cutting western states' revenues in the form of PILT, SRS, and Federal Mineral
             67      Lease (FML) cutbacks;
             68          WHEREAS, states east of Colorado pay billions of dollars each year to subsidize
             69      western states to not use their lands and resources to educate their own children and care for
             70      their own communities;
             71          WHEREAS, western states already manage millions of acres of state lands and generate
             72      more revenue with less expense and less environmental damage, in general, than federally
             73      managed public lands;
             74          WHEREAS, the National Association of Forest Service Retirees recently issued a paper
             75      describing the unsustainability of current federal forest management practices;
             76          WHEREAS, the resulting increase in catastrophic wildfires is needlessly killing
             77      millions of animals and destroying habitat and watersheds;
             78          WHEREAS, western states are incurring inordinate expenses to suppress forest fires
             79      related to failed federal forest policies;
             80          WHEREAS, the federal government discourages capital investment and job creation by
             81      taking 10 times longer to approve energy development permits than states to whom the federal
             82      government honored the promise to transfer title of the public lands;
             83          WHEREAS, in 2013, the Institute for Energy Research discovered that there is more
             84      than $150 trillion in mineral value locked up in federally controlled lands;
             85          WHEREAS, opening 8% of the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in


             86      Alaska would provide billions of dollars to the federal treasury, create more than 500,000 jobs
             87      nationwide, and add 9-16 billion barrels of oil to the nation's supply;
             88          WHEREAS, in 2012, the United States Government Accountability Office testified
             89      before Congress that there is more recoverable oil in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming than in the
             90      rest of the world combined;
             91          WHEREAS, legal analyses by the Sutherland Institute and the Federalist Society
             92      conclude that the intent of the parties, the text, and the context of the statehood enabling acts
             93      obligate the federal government to dispose of public lands;
             94          WHEREAS, for decades, states such as Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Arkansas,
             95      Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida were as much as 90% federally controlled;
             96          WHEREAS, these states persistently protested to the United States Congress that they
             97      could not fund their children's education, grow their economies, or govern themselves as
             98      sovereign states due to the federal government's control over their lands;
             99          WHEREAS, under the leadership of United States Senator Thomas Hart Benton from
             100      Missouri, these states worked together to compel Congress to transfer title to their public lands;
             101          WHEREAS, Senator Benton wrote that he went to "battle for an ameliorated system of
             102      disposing of our public lands . . . I resolved to move against the whole system . . . I did so
             103      in a bill, renewed annually for a long time";
             104          WHEREAS, of even more powerful effect than sponsoring a bill every year "for a long
             105      time," Senator Benton recorded that, for years, he taught throughout the United States that it
             106      was the "solemn compact" of the national government -- from the very founding of this nation
             107      -- to transfer title to the public lands within the states;
             108          WHEREAS, Senator Benton taught people true principles of statehood and rallied them
             109      to compel the members of their congressional delegations to "fix their eyes steadily upon the
             110      period of the speedy extinction of the federal title to all the lands within the limits of their
             111      respective States";
             112          WHEREAS, the 1828 Congressional Committee on the Public Lands indicated "in vain
             113      may the People of these States expect the advantages of well settled neighborhoods, so


             114      essential to the education of youth . . . Those states will, for many generations, without some
             115      change, be retarded in endeavors to increase their comfort and wealth, by means of works of
             116      internal improvements, because they have not the power, incident to all sovereign States, of
             117      taxing the soil, to pay for the benefits conferred upon its owner";
             118          WHEREAS, the Congressional Committee on the Public Lands during Senator
             119      Benton's service in Congress found, with respect to their admission as states, that "when these
             120      States stipulated not to tax the lands of the United States until they were sold, they rested upon
             121      the implied engagement of Congress to cause them to be sold, within a reasonable time. No
             122      just equivalent has been given those States for a surrender of an attribute of sovereignty so
             123      important to their welfare, and to an equal standing with the original States";
             124          WHEREAS, inspired by the courage and leadership of Senator Benton, those states
             125      succeeded in compelling Congress to transfer title of their public lands;
             126          WHEREAS, today, those states have less than 5% of their lands under federal control;
             127          WHEREAS, the national government made the same statehood promise to transfer title
             128      of the public lands to Utah and the other western states;
             129          WHEREAS, in 2012, Utah passed H.B. 148, Transfer of Public Lands Act and Related
             130      Study, which called upon the federal government to honor the same statehood promise made to
             131      Utah that it made and kept with all states east of Colorado to transfer title of Utah's public
             132      lands;
             133          WHEREAS, in 2013, the South Carolina Legislature passed a resolution supporting the
             134      transfer of public lands to willing western states;
             135          WHEREAS, other states east of Colorado are considering similar resolutions of support
             136      in 2014; and
             137          WHEREAS, national organizations, including the National Association of Counties, the
             138      American Farm Bureau Federation, and the Republican National Committee have passed
             139      resolutions supporting the transfer of public lands to willing western states:
             140          NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of the state of Utah, the
             141      Governor concurring therein, calls upon the federal government to honor the promises that it


             142      honored with all states east of Colorado and transfer title of public lands to all willing western
             143      states.
             144          BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Legislature and the Governor call upon
             145      national and state government leaders to exert their utmost power and influence to urge the
             146      imminent transfer of public lands to all willing western states for the benefit of these western
             147      states and for the nation as a whole.
             148          BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Legislature and the Governor strongly urge the
             149      members of Utah's congressional delegation to use every exertion of their power, by reason,
             150      argument, and persuasion, to induce the United States to honor the same statehood promise to
             151      transfer title of Utah's public lands that it made and kept with all states east of Colorado.
             152          BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Legislature and the Governor strongly urge the
             153      members of Utah's congressional delegation, acting for the "separate and independent
             154      sovereign" state of Utah, to follow the path of United States Senator Thomas Hart Benton and
             155      file, and do all in their power to secure the passage of, legislation to secure the transfer of all of
             156      the public lands enumerated in H.B. 148, Transfer of Public Lands Act and Related Study,
             157      2012 General Session.
             158          BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Legislature and the Governor strongly urge the
             159      members of Utah's congressional delegation to immediately sponsor legislation in the House of
             160      Representatives and the United States Senate that transfers ownership and title of the public
             161      lands within the state of Utah and within any other western state that wishes to be included in
             162      the legislation.
             163          BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Legislature and the Governor urge the
             164      members of Utah's congressional delegation to use the proposed introduction of legislation to
             165      transfer title and ownership of public lands as an opportunity to educate their colleagues
             166      regarding the importance of the legislation and to begin the process of obtaining cosponsors for
             167      the bill and support from the numerous individuals that will be positively affected by the
             168      transfer of these public lands to state ownership and control.
             169          BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this resolution be sent to the Majority


             170      Leader of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives,
             171      the leader of each state legislative body in each of the 50 states, the United States Secretary of
             172      the Interior, and the members of Utah's congressional delegation.


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