video courtesy of The Petroglyph
SITLA, PLI and Energy Corridors
Each state has school trust lands, which were reserved for the purpose of helping to fund public education from revenues produced through the development of those lands. Utah’s School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) exists to fulfill that promise with the dual benefit of funding schools and creating jobs through encouraging local enterprise.
Utah’s SITLA Director, David Ure, discourages oil and gas development on school trust lands and instead, wants the SITLA Land Exchange to be used for the creation of energy corridors which he says will increase his funds by $1 billion.
But PLI-related energy corridors will serve to benefit various government agencies and big corporations at the cost of small oil and gas and mining companies, ranchers, farmers and local Native American tribes. This brings to mind the question of whether Utah’s Public Lands Initiative, being pushed by Congressmen Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz, and Governor Herbert, equates to a massive deal with ‘green energy’ corporations and their chief transmission and distribution company, PacificCorp, which has been working with federal agencies for more than a decade to design and implement policy for energy corridors through the West.
Ure claims the SITLA-PLI land exchange will benefit Utah schools, which currently receive $300 million dollars in state taxpayer funding annually. Although school trust lands are meant to benefit public schools, Ure wants SITLA/PLI to engage in the business of picking winners and losers when it comes to the development and distribution of domestic energy in the state.
The energy corridors will benefit a few big players, but the implications of Utah’s Public Lands Initiative and SITLA exchanges will be devastating to the folks who live in and near the proposed energy corridors; namely ranchers, farmers, business owners, miners, small oil and gas companies, outdoor recreation businesses, Native American tribes, and all other citizens upon who this deceptive plan is being foisted.
It’s time Bishop, Chaffetz, Ure and all other big players come into the light and be honest about what’s really behind Utah’s Public Lands Initiative.
Free Range Report Admin.
