In 2012, the state of Utah passed a law demanding that the federal government transfer the more than 30 million acres of U.S. land within its borders to the state. Now, it has produced a report that it could afford to manage those lands.
It is an interesting position, albeit delusional. Federal lands are owned by all Americans, and the more than 300 million of us who do not live in Utah are not about to just hand them over.
It is unclear exactly where Utah lawmakers came up with the notion that their state is the rightful owner of federal lands within it. All the land west of the Mississippi was acquired by the United States of America – as a nation – by way of purchases, treaties or conquest. The federal lands Utah lawmakers have their eyes on have been owned by the American people since before Utah became a state. Other than proximity, Utah has little to do with those lands.
Proximity, however, seems to be the basis for Utah’s thinking – that and perhaps greed. The report Utah released Monday is an 800-page economic study that purports to show the state can afford to manage the federal land it wants, even though that land is five times the size of the land Utah now manages. That makes sense only if one takes manage to mean loot or pillage.
The study, which itself costs $550,000, estimates it would cost Utah $300 million to take over the land and another $280 million to manage it in 2017, the first year it envisions managing it.
Part of that would have to be devoted to battling wildfires. And were the federal government to transfer the land to Utah, federal fire fighting resources would be lost. Then again, maybe that does not matter to those who see the land only as a resource to exploit.
The study sees the money for managing the land coming from gas and oil production and mining coal. And to many observers, that is the whole point.
A spokesman for the Center for Western Priorities called the plan “a thinly veiled attempt to increase the pace of oil and gas development at great expense to taxpayer and the state’s renowned natural wonders.”
The sponsor of the 2012 land-transfer bill essentially confirmed that. Pointing to the study’s assertion that Utah can afford the cost, Republican state Rep. Ken Ivory, said that in addition to managing the land, “we can deal with a lot of other issues that provide a balanced public-land policy and management.” That sounds like code for log, drill and mine.
It can be little else. The federal lands in question generated more than $300 million in 2013. About 93 percent of that was from gas and oil or coal mining.
But coal is dirty and justly out of favor, while gas and oil are cheap now. The pot of gold Utah lawmakers apparently see under federal land may be a lot smaller than they think.
Besides, many of those mineral resources lie under spectacular scenery. In the long run, those lands are worth more for their natural beauty and rich recreational opportunities.
The central truth about Utah’s aspirations, however, remains the fact that federal lands are owned by all the people of the United States. And individual states cannot just help themselves to them. Utah does not own the federal land within its borders, and it is not going to.
Utah’s lawmakers could better spend their time trying to figure out how to tell their constituents why they spent $550,000 to study a fantasy.
