Utah elevated an age-old conflict between the states and the federal government with the passage of the Transfer of Public Lands Act; igniting a battle over public lands. Most of Utah's territory is owned by the federal government. In this paper, we analyze the legal, economic, and social repercussions of the TPLA. This study focuses on the issue of public lands management in Utah. Of increasing importance, the issue of wildfires on public lands: (1) strain federal and state institutional resources, (2) burden the development of the Wildlands User Interface, and (3) contribute to environmental degradation. Furthermore, we assess the value of public lands and question whether Utah is perfectly capable of managing the public lands more efficiently than the federal government. Our research indicates that applying TPLA to BLM lands in the Uintah Basin, with some limitation, could potentially open up new funding opportunities for the School Institutional Trust Lands Administration.

1. The Public Lands Debate in Utah
Key Issues Involving the Transfer of
Public Lands Act
Aisatou Diallo, Jaime Sigarán, and Federico Venco | Vermont Law School

2. Table of Contents
I. Intro to Public Lands in Utah
 Legal & Political Hummus
 Enabling Act of 1894 | Transfer of Public Lands Act of 2012
 Current Legal Framework
 Hawaii v. Hawaii Office of Hawaiian Affairs
II. Public Lands Management
 The Law of Fire
 Wildlands User Interface (WUI) State vs. Federal Inconsistencies
 The Value of Public Lands
 Opportunity: Uintah Basin Project
III. Politics in the Wild Wild West
 Social Welfare and Economics
 A Look into School Institutional Trust Lands (SITL)
 Deadline: December 31st, 2014
 Conclusion and Future Study

3. Legal History
1780 –
The
Resolutio
n of
Congress
on Public
Lands
1787 –
The
Northwest
Ordinance
1828 –
Graduate
Price of
Public
Lands
•American
Ins. Co. v.
Bales of
Cotton
1868 –
Texas v.
White
1896 –
Utah’s
Enabling
Act
1916 –
Organic
Act
1960 –
Wilderness
Act
1969 – National
Environmental
Protection Act
1976 – Federal
Public Lands
Management
Act
•National Forest
Management
Act
2001 –
Idaho v.
United
States
2009 –
Hawaii v.
Office of
Hawaiian
Affairs
2012 –
Transfer
of Public
Lands Act

4. Legal and Political Hummus
 Federal government maintained two primary goals:
1. Aimed to create new states; and
2. Directed to pay debts - EX. The Revolutionary War
 The binding value in the Resolution on Public Lands prevented state legislatures
from interring with Congress’ primary disposal of public lands
Contrast: The Northwest Ordinance and American Ins. Co. v. 356 Bales of
Cotton
 Equal footing doctrine upheld in Pollard v. Haggan that:
“the United States shall have fully executed these trusts, the municipal sovereignty of the new states
will be complete, throughout their respective borders, and they, and the original states, will be upon an
equal footing, in all respects."
 Later expanded upon in State of Texas v. White

5. Utah’s Enabling Act & TPLA
Utah’s Enabling Act 28 Stat. 107 § 3 (1894).
 [The People of Utah] agree that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries thereof; and to all
lands lying within said limits owned or held by any Indian or Indian tribes; and that until the title thereto shall have been extinguished by the United
States…”
 The Enabling Act of 1896 stipulates Utah disclaimed title to its public lands in favor of the United States until the United States disposed of the lands
Transfer of Public Lands Act. Utah Code Annotated § 63L-6-101-63L-6-104.
On or before December 31, 2014, the United States shall:
(a) extinguish title to public lands; and
(b) transfer title to public lands to the state.
(2) If the state transfers title to any public lands with respect to which the state receives
title under Subsection (1)(b), the state shall:
(a) retain 5% of the net proceeds the state receives from the transfer of title; and
(b) pay 95% of the net proceeds the state receives from the transfer of title to the
United States.
(3) In accordance with Utah Constitution Article X, Section 5, the amounts the state
retains in accordance with Subsection (2)(a) shall be deposited into the permanent State School
Fund.

6. Current Legal Framework
Hawaii v. Hawaii Office of Hawaiian Affairs
 2009 decision made by SCOTUS held Congress had no right to change the promises
made to the State’s Enabling Act.
 “together with the proceeds from the sale or other disposition of [these] lands and the income
therefrom, shall be held by [the] State as a public trust” to promote various public purposes.” –
Justice Samuel Alito
 The Hawaiian case can be distinguished from Utah's case.
 Hawaiian Admission Act expressly grants the land owned by the US to the new born State of
Hawaii and therefore the Apology Resolution would be unconstitutional if interpreted in the sense
of denying such grant.
 The difference here is that Utah's Enabling Act does not explicitly grant any land to the State, it just
(and according with one of the possible interpretations) says that Congress will extinguish the title
at a later unspecified time
 Prior to the Hawaii case there was Idaho v. United States (2001)
 Taken together American jurisprudence (the courts) emphasize that 'Congress cannot, after
statehood, reserve or convey submerged lands that have already been bestowed upon a State'

7. The Law of Fire
Federal and State Wildfire Management
 In 2011, the United States Forest Service spent approximately $18 million on wildfire suppression
spending in Utah
 That budget increased nearly threefold in 2012 reaching $58 million
 The Department of Natural Resources of Utah in 2011 budgeted $3 million for the upcoming fiscal
year
 The following fiscal year of 2012 total costs of suppressing wild fires cost upwards $16 million
Tying Resource Protection to Community Resiliency
a) Clean Water Act permits states to assert their authority over water in effort to “prevent, reduce, and
eliminate pollution in concert with [federal] programs for managing water resources
b) Similarly, the Clean Air Act prescribes Utah to protect watershed projects from smoke and wildfires
The main problem here is that state and federal approaches to developing the Wildlands
User Interface (WUI) are inadequate or lack a coherent form.
According to a study conducted by Headwater Economics, development away from the WUI must
be incentivized

8. Wildlands User Interface
Despite that only 7 percent of the WUI is already developed in the state, wildfires are
increasingly becoming more pronounced and unpredictable through climate change

9. Value of Public Lands
Social
•Recreation
•Aesthetic
•Wellness
Political
•Conservative
Environmentalist v. Radical
Environmentalist
•Bureaucratic Process
•Interagency Coordination
•USFS, BLM, and DNR
Economic
•Resource
Commercialization
•Human Development
•Energy

10. Uintah Basin Project
Applying TPLA
 According to edcUTAH there are 550 million barrels of oil viable for natural gas and oil extraction
 Sutherland Institute Center for Self-Government, Dr. Timothy Considine estimated “the state economy could
add…$1.2 billion and $6.7 billion and 9,400 to 58,000 jobs annually by developing oil, gas, and renewable
energy on federal lands within the state
Challenges include:
a) Need for transportation infrastructure
b) Resolve land ownership issues
Where do we go from here?
The silver lining is that understanding the full context and implication of TPLA in relation to fossil
fuels and renewable energy development on public lands is still unclear
 TPLA in theory could require an admixture of energy needs including oil and gas development
 However, Haggerty, Gude, Delory, & Rasker (2011) note socioeconomic variables associated with oil and gas
development lead to negative effects in per capita income, crime rate, and education attainment.

11. Social Welfare and Economics
School Institutional Trust
Lands Administration

12. Politics in the Wild Wild West
A look into SITL
 Utah’s education is at an extreme low, only spending less than $8,000 on per pupil
funding!
 More public land would benefit the state to add more school funding because they would
be able to increase tax revenue and provide that to schools
 Utah Congressman Rob Bishop acknowledges how the state can begin to fund education with more
public land and sets out to educate people on his plan to restore education in Utah
An underlying issue is that the state receives money from the federal government
via Payment-in-Lieu-of-Taxes (PILT)
 With the lack of private and state land, comes the lack of tax revenue
The Environmental Divide:
 Some environmentalist feel that the land should be left untouched
 Another perspective: Utah should move forward with TPLA because the federal government
mismanages public land resources at the expense of local communities and local concerns

13. Future Study: Mid-term Elections
District 1: Robert Bishop won 64.2% of the vote. Emerged victorious
over McAleer “Don’t let Rob Bishop and Republican legislators take it
away from our children”
District 2: Chris Stewart captured 60.4% of constituents. Secured a
victory over State Sen. Luz Robles “I’m very much in the middle. I
focus on issues of veterans, immigration and education that are
pertinent to all Americans.”
District 3: Jason Chaffetz delivered 72.3% of the constituency.
Defeated Brian Wondacott “[w]e will definitely be using it all up and
even though there are efforts to get more with fracking and stuff like
that and all that means is that we will use more oil faster.”
District 4: Mia Love garnered 50% of the votes. Pulled a win against
Doug Owens “[W]e can be good stewards here in Utah, absolutely. I
favor the stake holder driven process, not driven from Washington,
driven from here.
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14. Thank You!
Acknowledgements: Headwater Economics, Sutherland Institute, Desert News, UtahPolicy.com,