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Senate approves University of Alaska land grant bill
Steve Sutherlin, PNA managing editor
The U.S. Senate approved a land grant bill Nov. 19 that will give the University of Alaska up to 500,000 acres of federal lands to fund higher education in the state, capping a seven-year effort on the part of Sen. Frank Murkowski. The bill has advanced to the House for consideration during a final session the week of Nov 25, said a Nov. 20 press release from Murkowski’s Senate office.
“Without the land promised to it under the nation’s land-grant college system, the University has been unable to fulfill its destiny to be one of the premier land grant colleges in the nation,” Murkowski said in the release. “This legislation will allow the University to select promising lands whose revenues would help it provide a quality education for Alaska’s youth.”
Under the bill, the university would receive 250,000 acres outright, and it would be permitted to select an additional 250,000 acres of federal lands, provided that amount is matched by the state of Alaska on an acre-by-acre basis.
NPR-A lands limited Environmental groups object to the grants as well over concerns about logging and development of remote lands. In an effort to reduce environmentalist concerns, the measure contains prohibitions on selecting lands containing virgin, old growth timber in Southeast Alaska and restrictions on selections in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, said the release.
The university can select no more than 92,000 acres within NPR-A north of 69 degrees north latitude, and it cannot select lands withdrawn for the villages of Atqasuk, Barrow, Nuiqsut and Wainwright under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Additional language in the bill is designed to guarantee that both the state and federal governments benefit from future oil leasing in NPR-A.
Joe Beedle, university vice president of finance, said the university’s first preference is land with oil or gas potential, which would likely be held rather than sold.
The oil and gas land is a long-term income-producing asset itself, Beedle told PNA, while land with potential for subdivisions or recreation is typically sold by the university in order to purchase income-producing investments.
A move toward parity Sen. Ted Stevens co-sponsored the measure, the Murkowski office release said.
“This legislation is a good first step toward seeing a fairer lands policy enacted in Alaska,” Stevens said. “It would further enhance the mission of the University of Alaska as a land grant institution and create more in-state educational opportunities for future generations of Alaskans.”
Under the bill, the University would be required to give back 10,000 acres of inholdings in Denali National Park and Preserve, Kenai Fjords, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve and in the Alaska Peninsula and Maritime National Wildlife Refuges, and other national parks and refuges.
The University is restricted from selecting lands within conservation system units, from federal lands used by federal or military institutions or lands currently classified as roadless in the Tongass National Forest, and from acreage containing old-growth timber in the Tongass, the release said.
“If you look at the University of Washington, it owns large profitable holdings in downtown Seattle in its endowment portfolio. It is only right that Alaska have an endowment for its university with greater revenue-generating potential,” Murkowski said.
Murkowski said the university should have received far more than 260,000 acres under the federal School Land’s Act of 1915. The conveyance didn’t take place because Congress never appropriated funds to pay for land surveys to delineate the tracts.
The university initially received only 111,211 federal acres, a third of what it originally was promised, compared to grants of one million or more acres in New York, New Mexico and Oklahoma, the release said.
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