WASHINGTON — Two bills — one calling for a land swap to protect views of Lake Powell, and one that may help expand the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail — were endorsed last week by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
It passed both bills by a voice vote and sent them to the full Senate for consideration.
One calls for trading 122 acres of now-private land owned by Page One Corp. that sits between U.S. 89 and Lake Powell near the town of Big Water for 370 acres of "geographically isolated" land owned by the National Park Service on the opposite side of the road hidden by topographic features.
Page One has said that although it would obtain more acreage, appraisals it ordered say the land the federal government would obtain is worth twice as much.
That bill — sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Bob Bennett and in the House by Rep. Chris Cannon, both R-Utah — passed the House in March on a 423-0 vote. The House also passed it last year, but the Senate never acted on it before adjournment then.
Bennett told the committee earlier this month that Page One "could put in a 7-Eleven or strip mall or anything else" on its land if it so chose now. "But frankly, it would spoil the view that tourists get as they drive by." The Bush administration also supports the land trade.
Meanwhile, the committee also passed a bill by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to study adding alternate paths used by pioneers to the National Trail System. That may lead to expanding the Mormon Pioneer, Pony Express, California and the Oregon national historic trails.
When those historic trails were originally established, Congress allowed only one point-to-point path for each. The route followed by Brigham Young in 1847, for example, became the Mormon pioneer trail, although most other Mormon pioneers used other starting points or variations of the path across the plains and mountains.
Hatch has said that only 200 of the 70,000 Mormon pioneers used the exact route marked as the Mormon Pioneer Historic Trail.
"Not every great or tragic event took place along the main routes," Hatch told the committee recently. "To the contrary, tens of thousands of settlers set out from other places, and many of the most memorable and important events occurred along the historical side roads and alternate routes."
The National Park Service Ross endorses that study, but said it probably should stand behind 37 other studies Congress has already ordered but not yet funded.
However, a coalition of Wyoming oil producers, ranchers and farmers said they worry about expanding those trails, all of which pass through Wyoming, because of restrictions the government may put on surrounding lands. It said that could curtail oil and gas production, and grazing.
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