Conflicting public lands bills get different treatment in Colorado House committee

A bill to create a Public Lands Day and honor the importance of federal lands to the economic and environmental health of Colorado got an important nod from a state House committee on Monday and now heads to the House floor and then likely back to the Senate for what is sure to be a lively debate.

Sponsored by Vail Democrat Kerry Donovan, the Public Lands Day bill first passed a full Senate vote in February but was amended to reflect Republican dissatisfaction with federal lands management and a perceived lack of state control and access for extractive industries such as hard-rock mining, oil and gas drilling, cattle grazing and logging.

The House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on Monday passed the bill with a compromise amendment supported by some Colorado conservation groups. The same committee on Monday rejected a bill passed by the Senate in March that would have created concurrent state and local police powers on federally-owned lands and was viewed as an attempt to assert greater state control.

“Coloradans want to celebrate, not seize our public lands,” said Scott Braden, Conservation Colorado’s Wilderness and Public Lands Advocate. “Our legislature [Monday] echoed those values by ending the journey of a unnecessary and legally problematic land seizure bill while simultaneously advancing a bill to establish the first-in-the-nation Public Lands Day.

“There’s no better way to celebrate the start of National Parks Week than by showing that Colorado can be a leader on public lands policy, as it is in so many other arenas.”

Critics of the police powers bill say it was unnecessary because state and local police already have agreements in place to work with the federal government on public lands owned by the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management in the event of an emergency.

Sponsored by Sen. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, and co-sponsored by Sen. Randy Baumgardner, R-Hot Sulphur Springs, SB160 (pdf) would have defined “’jurisdictional right’ to mean the ability of the state or a political subdivision of the state, as applicable, to exercise its lawful police powers over a given land area.”

“It’s something that’s still on a lot of people’s minds as far as who controls the land, whether it’s local or the federal government,” Baumgardner said in a previous interview. Last session the senator who represents a vast swath of Northwest Colorado ran an unsuccessful bill to study how the state might assume control of federal lands and the potential economic benefits.

The Public Lands Day Bill, SB21 (pdf), is sponsored by Sen. Kerry Donovan, D-Vail, who calls it a way to “communicate how important our public lands are — how they define our state as a great place to live and visit. [It’s] something that really honors our outdoors and is a way to make a strong statement on our public lands staying public.”

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David O. Williams

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David O. Williams is the editor and co-founder of RealVail.com and has had his awarding-winning work (see About Us) published in more than 75 newspapers and magazines around the world, including 5280 Magazine, American Way Magazine (American Airlines), the Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), the Anchorage Daily Press (Alaska), Aspen Daily News, Aspen Journalism, the Aspen Times, Beaver Creek Magazine, the Boulder Daily Camera, the Casper Star Tribune (Wyoming), the Chicago Tribune, Colorado Central Magazine, the Colorado Independent (formerly Colorado Confidential), Colorado Newsline, Colorado Politics (formerly the Colorado Statesman), Colorado Public News, the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Colorado Springs Independent, the Colorado Statesman (now Colorado Politics), the Colorado Times Recorder, the Cortez Journal, the Craig Daily Press, the Curry Coastal Pilot (Oregon), the Daily Trail (Vail), the Del Norte Triplicate (California), the Denver Daily News, the Denver Gazette, the Denver Post, the Durango Herald, the Eagle Valley Enterprise, the Eastside Journal (Bellevue, Washington), ESPN.com, Explore Big Sky (Mont.), the Fort Morgan Times (Colorado), the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the Greeley Tribune, the Huffington Post, the King County Journal (Seattle, Washington), the Kingman Daily Miner (Arizona), KUNC.org (northern Colorado), LA Weekly, the Las Vegas Sun, the Leadville Herald-Democrat, the London Daily Mirror, the Moab Times Independent (Utah), the Montgomery Journal (Maryland), the Montrose Daily Press, The New York Times, the Parent’s Handbook, Peaks Magazine (now Epic Life), People Magazine, Powder Magazine, the Pueblo Chieftain, PT Magazine, the Rio Blanco Herald Times (Colorado), Rocky Mountain Golf Magazine, the Rocky Mountain News, RouteFifty.com (formerly Government Executive State and Local), the Salt Lake Tribune, SKI Magazine, Ski Area Management, SKIING Magazine, the Sky-Hi News, the Steamboat Pilot & Today, the Sterling Journal Advocate (Colorado), the Summit Daily News, United Hemispheres (United Airlines), Vail/Beaver Creek Magazine, Vail en Español, Vail Health Magazine, Vail Valley Magazine, the Vail Daily, the Vail Trail, Westword (Denver), Writers on the Range and the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. Williams is also the founder, publisher and editor of RealVail.com and RockyMountainPost.com.

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