Political odd couples joined forces again Thursday to support a huge land swap to benefit Utah schools and to push for the measure to continue its lightning pace through Congress.
Environmentalists and developers, Republicans and Democrats - even plaintiffs and defendants involved in related litigation - told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee the deal would make them all winners.They said it would end 70 years of battles over whether and how to swap out a checkerboard of state school trust lands, which are supposed to raise money for schools. Over time, the lands became surrounded by expanding national parks, forests and lands.
"For nearly 70 years and through the administrations of 12 presidents and nine governors, the federal government and the state of Utah have struggled with the management of these lands," said Gov. Mike Leavitt.
"This legislation presents a rare opportunity to resolve this struggle," he said.
Leavitt and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt unveiled the proposal last month. It flew through the House, which gave it final passage Wednesday. The quick action was aided by the unusual alliances that formed behind it.
One of the most unusual is among the Clinton administration, Leavitt and Utah's Republicans in Congress. Last year, the Utahns blasted Clinton for his surprise creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument that buried 177,000 acres of school lands.
But Leavitt said they put differences aside and worked out a deal in which 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 on coal and natural gas.
Leavitt said that includes 160 million tons of coal, 185 billion cubic feet of coal bed methane resources and $13 million to be generated from the sale of unleased coal.
He said the federal government will obtain such things as the Eye of the Whale Arch within Arches National Park, the Jacob Hamblin Arch and the Perfect Ruin (an Anazazi site) along Lake Powell and rock art in Dinosaur National Monument.
Leavitt said if the deal is approved, a state council overseeing school trust lands will also drop its lawsuit challenging the formation of Grand Staircase-Escalante.
Babbitt submitted a written statement that he and Leavitt both decided they "would be better off if we spent our time and money investing in the lands and the people instead of litigation and lawyers."
Also praising the deal were groups ranging from the Utah Parent Teachers Association to the environmentalist Wilderness Society. "We do believe that this legislation . . . is a good deal for all concerned," said society president William H. Meadows.
Some concerns about the deal were raised by officials from Kane and Garfield counties, but even they did not seek to stop the deal, only to try to win more compensation.
They said the deal appears to forever prohibit lucrative development of huge mineral reserves within Grand Staircase-Escalante that could have made their counties prosperous. They are given virtually nothing to compensate for that loss, they said.
"We are one of the richest natural resource counties in the state and also one of the most economically depressed because we are no longer able to develop those resources," said Garfield County Commissioner Louise Liston.
She urged that some of the mineral royalties collected elsewhere be given to her county and Kane County to offset such problems.
Members of the Utah delegation also have been looking at other types of aid, including more funding for dams and pipelines to bring water to currently dry lands to allow more farming and other development.