SITLA

Utah trust-lands administrators aren’t making any decisions yet on the new Bears Ears National Monument. They want to know more before they consider exchanging 109,000 acres inside the monument.

Utah’s trust-lands agency netted $5.5 million this week for a fund that benefits schoolchildren. Private owners made the highest bids now own more than 3,800 acres of land that’s also prized for scenery, history and recreation.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert has tapped a county councilman and former state legislator to continue building the agency that turns land and minerals into funding for public schools.

  An environmental group says developing oil shale in the West would require enormous amounts of water – and it’s pointing to a recent court case to back up its argument.

A court settlement last week between Western Resource Advocates and Chevron resulted in the disclosure that Chevron’s plan for developing oil shale in Colorado would require up to 120-thousand acre-feet of water annually.  That’s more water than Salt Lake City uses in a year.

New, bipartisan legislation in Congress would advance public education and conserve important landscapes by making it easier to transfer lands between government agencies.

  Utah’s governor and the state director of the Bureau of Land Management have formalized a land exchange involving 60-thousand acres in southern and eastern Utah.

The land exchange has been in the works since 2009, when then-Senator Bob Bennett and Congressman Jim Matheson worked to pass a bill authorizing the deal.  But it’s taken years to finalize the details. 

  Utah’s governor has struck a deal with an oil company to hold off on drilling in an area of the Book Cliffs that’s prized for its wildlife habitat. 

The agreement between Governor Gary Herbert’s office, Anadarko Petroleum and the State Institutional Trust Lands Administration, or SITLA, will allow a lease to go ahead.  But Robin Olsen with Anadarko says they won’t drill in the sensitive Bogart Canyon area before January of 2016.

  The State Board of Education has endorsed the decision by Utah’s state trust lands agency to move ahead with a drilling lease in the Book Cliffs, even though a member of Congress and the governor’s office was asking them to hold off. 

  Governor Gary Herbert’s office is trying to work out a deal with Utah’s state lands agency on a drilling lease in the Book Cliffs.  

Last week, Governor Herbert asked the State Institutional Trust Lands Administration, or SITLA, to hold off on a drilling lease in an area of the Book Cliffs in Grand County.  Sportsmen’s groups and environmentalists say the area is pristine wildlife habitat and ought to be preserved.

  An environmental group says the decision to lease a large area of the Book Cliffs for oil and gas exploration shows Utah can’t manage its own public lands.

  Utah Governor Gary Herbert is asking Utah’s state lands agency not to lease about 20-thousand acres in the Book Cliffs for oil and gas drilling.  Sportsmen and environmental groups have said the area near Bogart Canyon needs to be protected as wildlife habitat. 

The governor told reporters at the state capitol Thursday afternoon the State Institutional Trust Lands Administration, or SITLA, has done a good job getting money out of Utah’s state lands, but in this case, it needs to look at a long-term strategy that could bring in even more in the long run.

Utah schools will be getting a little extra boost from the School LAND Trust Program.  The state treasurer announced Friday that school trust fund investments received record earnings, pushing the total value over 1.6 billion dollars at the end of the state’s fiscal year in June.