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Bill aims to finalize Alaska land transfer Sen. Murkowski pushing bill that would speed land transfer of 89 million acres from federal government to state, Native corporations Patricia Jones Petroleum News Contributing Writer
Alaska’s senators in Washington, D.C., have proposed legislation designed to speed up the process of transferring from the federal government lands due to the state of Alaska, to Alaska Native corporations and for individual Native allotments.
Senate Bill 1466 lays out procedures for the Bureau of Land Management to complete surveying and final title transfer of 89 million acres of land in Alaska. Of that, roughly 60 million acres will go to the state of Alaska, part of its 104-million acre entitlement allowed under statehood.
The remaining 29 million acres will go to Alaska Native corporations, the remaining land due of the total 44 million acres given under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
Competing claims to lands, many selected for mineral potential, has slowed the process. Sorting out those conflicts and then completing final survey work has been part of the holdup.
“Under current law and procedures we are at least 20 years from seeing these conveyances complete. And some estimates are that it might take 85 years or even another 300 years to complete the conveyances,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, during a Feb. 12 hearing on the bill, heard by a subcommittee of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Murkowski and Alaska’s senior senator, Ted Stevens, proposed the legislation that includes technical changes to resolve problems in the land transfer process, an attempt to complete the state’s land selections before Alaska’s 50th anniversary of statehood in 2009.
“The federal government now has management jurisdiction over about 63 percent of the state. It is long past time to transfer these public lands from Federal to state and private ownership,” Murkowski said during the hearing.
Some clarifications on the bill are being considered and a final vote within the subcommittee of Public Lands and Forests is expected mid-spring, according to Chuck Kleeschulte, a Murkowski staff assistant. Additional funding To aid in the land conveyance work, Murkowski sought an additional $15 million for fiscal year 2004. Of that, $9.5 million was approved, giving federal agencies a total of $46.5 million to fund land conveyance issues.
Most of that money goes to the Bureau of Land Management, Kleeschulte said, primarily to complete cadastral surveys of selected lands. Some of the money contributes to agency overhead expenses in Alaska.
“They really need $52.5 million over the next five years to complete the survey work,” he said.
Federal funding for Alaska’s land conveyance issues has been about $37 million annually for “a number of years,” he added. Environmental groups’ concern One potential land transfer addressed by environmental groups testifying during the hearing is really a “non-issue,” Kleeschulte said.
That involves the final selection and transfer of 2,000 acres of land to the Kaktovik Inupiat Corp., due under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and under a 1983 land trade in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
While the bill would complete the complex land trade, it would not permit oil development on the inholding inside the 1002 area of ANWR unless Congress approves oil development from the coastal plain.
Other types of surface development by the Native corporation would be allowed, Kleeschulte said.
Testimony during the hearing from environmental groups centered around concern that the land transfer might somehow open the area to oil development, he added. Mining industry support Also complicating the process are some mineral rich lands that were withdrawn in past years by federal orders, which have now expired, said Steve Borell, executive director of the Alaska Miners Association, an industry group that supports the bill.
“All across Alaska there are lingering withdrawals of various types,” he wrote in testimony submitted to the subcommittee. “The amount of land covered by the lingering withdrawals has been estimated to be possibly several millions of acres. What is known is that some of the lands … have high potential for minerals and have been selected by the state of Alaska and/or Native corporations.”
He requested that the bill include provisions to deal with those lingering withdrawals, where the original intent has been satisfied but the land has not become available for state or Native selection.
“First, the existing Public Land Orders must be ‘revoked’ and then the lands must be specifically ‘opened’ to appropriation under the public land laws,” Borell wrote. “Furthermore, these lingering withdrawals must be removed at the earliest possible date so the state can evaluate and compare these lands with its other selections to ensure that the highest value lands are conveyed to the state. This is especially true given the restrictive time limitation required for final prioritization.”
Both the Alaska state Legislature and the BLM Alaska Resource Advisory Council have passed resolutions calling for removal of the lingering land withdrawals, he added.
“In the nearly 23 years since passage of ANILCA (the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act), this is the first time there has been an opportunity to address the issue of these obsolete/lingering withdrawals. Without addressing these withdrawals, S.1466 is of only marginal value,” he wrote.
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