Range war ahead? Utah legislator proposing bill to receive ownership of federal lands within state
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Posted: Saturday, January 14, 2012 1:15 am
Ivory is proposing the state exert rights that Ivory says are rooted in the Utah Enabling Act, which led to Utah's statehood in 1896.
That act, Ivory said, establishes that the federal government acts as a "trustee" of the land. He said in 1976, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act directly contradicted the provisions of the Utah Enabling Act.
Ivory's legislation will call for the federal government to dispose of all public lands in the state, except for American Indian lands, which are reserved in the act. The bill establishes a deadline of Dec. 31, 2014, for the federal government to do so. There is also a deadline of Oct. 31, 2012, for Congress to "confirm its intent to begin the process" of disposing the public land to the state.
A Utah Public Lands Commission would be created to manage the multiple use of the public land.
"So what we do is we say, ‘You dispose of the land to the state to a public lands commission, and then Utahns will sort out all those interests for Utahns.' We'll decide how to best manage all that multiple use - access, open space, hunting, fishing, grazing, mining, timber, to the extent that in a public process we decide there are some lands, if any, that can be privately sold,.....
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