ST. GEORGE — Utah House Rep. Raymond P. Ward says his new bill is part of an ongoing discussion about transferring public lands to the state.
But opponents say it’s “utterly pointless.”
The bill, designated HB 151 in the 2024 Utah Legislature, will create an inventory of Bureau of Land Management lands within a half-mile of cities and towns across Utah with the hope of transferring those lands to the state in the future.
Ward said the legislation is part of a prolonged discussion about public lands in the state.
“The federal government says, ‘Well, these are our lands, our federal lands, our public lands,’ but it’s really under the federal government’s control,” he told St. George News. “And, for a long time, Utah said, ‘No, those belong to us.'”
Ward said Utah gaining ownership of the federal land within its borders would be a “home run.”
“And I would call this bill trying to get a single,” he continued. “Instead of us just saying, ‘Give us all the lands back,’ we’ll say, ‘Hey, federal government, there are some of those that are really high priority to us.”‘
Ward, who represents District 19 in Davis County, said that public land parcels inside or adjacent to a city boundary would take priority. So the representative drafted the bill to create a statewide inventory of land the state could request from the federal government for various uses, including housing, parks and economic development, among others.
“If we’re ever going to have that kind of voice, as we ask for some of the lands back from the feds, then it’s incumbent on us to know what it is that we want to have,” he said, adding that the inventory would allow lawmakers to “ask better.”
Ward said the bill addresses lands near already developed areas, as opposed to wilderness areas, which are typically more remote. Additionally, lands that have federal designations, such as national wilderness areas, national monuments or national parks, would retain the associated restrictions.
“You couldn’t — even if you wanted to — build a tennis court,” he said.
Creating the inventory
The Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office would complete the inventory by requesting a list of parcels from local governments.
“No one’s going to sit on the cities and penalize them if they don’t answer,” Ward said. “And there probably are cities where they’re like, ‘Oh, well, we really don’t have anything to tell you. But the requirement is just for our public lands office to go around and ask to make that list.'”
Should the bill pass, enactment could cost the coordinating office $19,300 in fiscal year 2024 and $115,800 in both fiscal years 2025 and 2026, according to the fiscal note. Cities may also see increased spending to prepare the information, but the “costs are assumed to be marginal and will vary by municipality.”
The bill could increase the workloads of city staff as they prepare the information for the state, Cedar City Engineer Jonathan Stathis told St. George News via email.
Multiple sources commented to St. George News that the reason for the bill was unclear based on its language.
“I’m not sure exactly what the ultimate purpose is for providing the information,” Stathis said. “It looks like it’s just to help the State put together an inventory report. I would like to know if (or how) the inventory report will be used in the BLM’s decision-making process. There is already a system in place if the City wants to request the use of BLM land. Cedar City has used this process many times for infrastructure such as roads, water wells, tanks, etc.
“The bill says that the report will be presented to a legislative committee, but I’m not sure if the inventory will then be used in the future to guide the BLM’s decision-making process. I would like more information regarding how the inventory report will be used.”
Cities and towns can submit a right of way application, which would allow the municipality to use the land for a specific purpose for a specified period. Potential uses include energy production, roads and trails, pipelines and reservoirs, according to the bureau’s website.
Under 1976’s Federal Land Policy and Management Act, excess BLM lands are also sometimes listed for sale, such as isolated areas that are difficult or uneconomical to manage, land originally intended for a specific purpose that is no longer needed, or if the parcels could serve “important public objectives, such as community expansion or economic development,” the BLM states.
Ward said in the current system, cities must approach federal agencies and “beg their permission.”
“Then you go through the slow federal bureaucracy, and you may or may not get permission,” he added. “But then it still belongs to them, so to speak. The hope with this would be that eventually, we’d go to them and say, ‘Hey, it doesn’t actually even make sense for you to be the one that still owns that — there’s neighborhoods right next to it.'”
Rep. Walt Brooks said the bill would streamline the process of land exchanges and sales.
“I think his bill is probably focused on that a little more clear than current policy, but that’s really the only difference,” said Brooks, who represents District 75 in Washington County.
An ongoing discussion
Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, said the bill was “utterly pointless.”
“Even by Utah-land-grab standards,” he said. “It doesn’t really do anything at best, and at worst, it adds an extra layer of bureaucracy that would make it harder for towns that do have a legitimate need to build affordable housing, for instance.”
While “Utah can request anything it wants,” Weiss said that it wouldn’t happen in practice.
“The less charitable way to read this bill is it’s just part of Ken Ivory’s quixotic quest to get rid of national public lands in Utah, which has always been — No. 1, pointless and No. 2, deeply unpopular. … It seems like another make-work bill for Ken Ivory’s ongoing grift to get rich off the taxpayers of Utah.”
Utah State House Rep. Ken Ivory sponsored the Transfer of Public Lands Act, designated HB 148 in the 2012 Utah Legislature, which became law later that year. The bill stated that the federal government must transfer the title of over 30 million acres of federal public lands in Utah to the state by Dec. 31, 2014, with some exceptions made for national parks, monuments, wilderness areas, tribal lands and others. An exception was not made for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
To date, the transfer has not occurred, with opponents, like the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance saying Utah’s law is unconstitutional according to both the state and U.S. constitutions.
More recently, the Utah House and Senate passed the Joint Resolution Encouraging Support for the Houses Act, designated HJR 9 in the 2024 Legislature. The resolution was also sponsored by Ivory, with Ward voting in favor during a House vote.
It expresses support for Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s Helping Open Underutilized Space to Ensure Shelter Act, which would amend the Federal Land Policy and Management Act to allow state and local governments to nominate a parcel of BLM land that could be used for residential development.
The bill would require that at least 85% of the land be used for residential purposes, with up to one home per quarter-acre, and 15% open to commercial and other uses, such as secondary schools, grocery stores and hospitals, according to the bill.
It would require the Secretary of the Interior to prioritize housing on these parcels over other uses and restrict them from considering “whether the housing shortage could be addressed prudently or feasibly on land other than the nominated tract,” the bill states.
When asked if HB 151 was developed in conjunction with Lee’s bill, Ward said via email that “there wasn’t any coordination on my part, with Senator Lees’s office, but I think it just shows that people in different places are trying to think about how we could get this to work out.
“I think they would work together,” Ward added. “HB151 just has us prioritizing the lands we want and starting to make plans for how we would use the land if we could get it made available to us. Ultimately, though, something like the HOUSES act will need to pass to get those lands back in our local control.”
Weiss said neither Lee’s bill nor HB 151 defines affordable housing, characterizing both as “insulting.”
“The way Mike Lee’s HOUSES Act is written — it’s a McMansions bill that would allow for McMansions to get built for rich folks on the edges of national parks,” he said. “And certainly, you’d look at the portion of this state bill that allows or encourages cities to request land that is outside of their current limits but within a half-mile away; well, that’s just encouraging more of the same thing.”
Ultimately, the decision would be made on a federal level, Ward said.
“Our federal delegation would have to be making requests on behalf of our cities and people here,” he said. “Somehow, we would have to find other states that also cared about it in a similar fashion. It’s going to be hard to get the federal government to move unless it’s more than one state asking.”
How does the public feel?
In a 2016 poll by Public Opinion Strategies and Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates, also known as FM3, about 41% of Utahns polled supported state government control of national public lands, with taxpayers paying all costs, including maintenance and preventing and fighting wildfires. Approximately 47% were opposed.
When asked the same question in 2017, polled Utah residents responded in similar margins, with approximately 41% in support and 48% opposed.
Another 2016 poll conducted by Utah Policy and Dan Jones & Associates found that 55% of Utahns support state control of federal lands, with 39% opposed.
In 2024, 83% of Utahns polled by Colorado College for its State of the Rockies Project said they supported international 30×30 goals — conservation of 30% of global terrestrial and marine habitat by 2030. And 84% supported “the creation of new national parks, national monuments, national wildlife refuges and tribal protected areas to protect historic sites or areas for outdoor recreation.”
The bill has not yet left the House Rules Committee. Brooks said the committee appears to be prioritizing other bills, and HB 151 may need to be reintroduced next year.
Updated, Feb. 20, 12:36 p.m., to clarify a quote from Ward.
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