From Deseret News archives:

Land-swap bill returns

Published: Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007 12:02 a.m. MST
 |  E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT + - 
WASHINGTON — A 40,000-acre land swap aimed at helping Utah students and preserving government land has resurfaced in the Senate.

The same bill passed the House last year but time ran out before it could get through the Senate, so Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch, both R-Utah, reintroduced it Thursday.

The Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act of 2007 trades about 40,000 acres of land managed by the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration. The land is located near the Colorado River in Uintah and Grand counties. Under the bill, it would be swapped for 40,000 acres of federal land believed to have more economic potential for the trust.

"We see this exchange as a win-win solution for the state of Utah and its school children, as well as for the Department of the Interior, the caretaker of our public lands," Bennett said.

Bennett said the equal exchange will give "taxpayers and the schoolchildren of Utah a fair deal," and the bill creates a "common-sense valuation process for resources that are often either overlooked or overvalued because of their highly-speculative nature."

The Interior Department supported the bill at a hearing last year, and the environmental group Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance also supports it.


Story continues below
E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com

Comments

You can be the first to comment on this story.

previousnext

Latest comments

I remember, as a kid, hearing about people who had been to all the LDS...

Wow. How sad. He adopted three children before being caught? Was in...

Trapped hikers rescued by air

Glad they are safe. Glad the rescuers are safe. Glad the rescuers had the...

Comprehensive youth protection rules, guidelines and procedures have been put...

Aggies aspire to be like Boise St.

well the education level is easily matched...but that's not saying much

We will crush you JD crush you.

Lies shatter Utah family

I think the public should be aware in part because this guy has been around...

He'll win it...best of the TEs for sure

Fredette named player of the week

Big shocker, he'll get that for at least 12 of the weeks, though the...

Heaven forbid that those nasty firemen dare to rush out of the fire station...

Advertisements
Advertisement