Legislative bills tell federal government to give up public land in Utah

SALT LAKE CITY — A legislative committee Tuesday endorsed four public lands bills that demand the federal government relinquish title to lands it owns in Utah.

The bills let the federal government retain control of the state's five national parks, set up a public lands commission and provide for funding for the state to force the action in federal court.

Despite questions over their constitutionality, the bills now advance for additional consideration.

Utah's Chief Deputy Attorney General John Swallow said his office stands ready to defend the bills.

"There's never an opportunity to go into battle, never an opportunity to assert a right  where there is not a little risk," he said, adding it is time to "tear down the metaphorical walls the federal government has built around our state's resources."

The two bills and two resolutions give the federal government a deadline to relinquish title and warn of pending legal action. They have the support of the Utah School Boards Association, the Utah Farm Bureau and the Utah Association of Counties.

The lone dissenter on the House Natural Resources committee Tuesday was Rep. Joel Briscoe, D-Salt Lake City, and Utah's Democrats blasted the proposals afterward in a press conference.

In committee, House Chair Rep. Roger Barrus, R-Centerville, sponsor of one of the resolutions, HJR3, said the time is long past for Utah to hold the federal government accountable for its broken promises to cede land to the state in Utah's Enabling Act.

"Utah did not and could not have contemplated the United States failing to dispose of these lands within a reasonable time," he said. "It's been 116 years since the state was created. ... The only remedy we see as a state is for the state of Utah to take back management responsibility of the state's public lands."

The bills rest on the premise that upon transfer of the title of the lands to Utah, 5 percent of the proceeds would be deposited into the state schools' permanent trust fund. The land could then be taxed.

Sponsors argue that Utah operates at a severe economic disadvantage because the federal government has unlawfully retained title to more than 60 percent of the land mass in Utah — a retention never envisioned by the framers of the U.S. Constitution and subsequently barred in U.S. Supreme Court decisions.