With no opposition, a huge land swap proposed to bring millions of dollars more to Utah schools easily took its second step through Congress Wednesday.
The full House Resources Committee passed it on a unanimous voice vote a week after its Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands had also endorsed it. It now goes to the full House.The swap - proposed last month by Gov. Mike Leavitt and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt - would trade out a checkerboard of state school trust lands (designed to raise money for schools) that are now buried within national parks, forests and lands.
Utah would give the federal government 376,739 acres of school lands in exchange for $50 million in cash, 140,000 acres of federal lands and leases for coal and natural gas.
Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, chairman of the national parks subcommittee, is sponsoring the legislation in the House. The Senate has also scheduled hearings on the proposal next week.
Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, who is also a member of the House Resources Committee, praised the deal as necessary to help ensure Utah schools do not suffer from the many trust lands recently buried in the new Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
But, he added, "It is merely a first step. This trade deals with about 10 percent of Utah's school trust lands (scattered statewide), the remaining vast majority of which are still surrounded by federal property."
Cannon again also vowed to help compensate Kane and Garfield counties.
He has said officials are looking at possibly compensating the counties by building and/or repairing some dams and pipelines to supply more water to allow farming or other development.
"We have an obligation to creatively provide these counties an economic future whether by expanding water resources, creating new jobs or some other innovations," Cannon said.