[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 83 (Friday, June 7, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S5980]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. MURKOWSKI:
  S. 1851. A bill to convey certain Public Lands in the State of Alaska 
to the University of Alaska, and for other purposes; to the Committee 
on Energy and Natural Resources.


                the university of alaska land grant act

 Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, today I introduce legislation in 
support of higher education in the State of Alaska.
  Mr. President, the University of Alaska is a land-grant college 
without the land. In 1915, Congress reserved for Alaska's land-grant 
institution potentially more than 250,000 acres in the Tanana Valley, 
proceeds from the sale and development of which--like other land grant 
institutions--would help finance the operation of the school. Under the 
terms of the measure, written by Delegate James Wickersham, the college 
was to receive surveyed and unclaimed Section 33 in an area of about 
14,000 square miles between Fairbanks, AK in the north and the 
foothills of the Alaska Range in the south, this was in addition to the 
main campus of about 2,250 acres 4 miles from Fairbanks.
  However, this large Tanana Valley land grant never materialized. For 
decades, almost all of the land in the Tanana Valley (like the rest of 
Alaska) remained unsurveyed and therefore unavailable. As late as the 
1950s, only 0.6 percent of Alaska had been properly surveyed under the 
standard rectangular system, and a territorial report concluded that at 
the speed Alaska was being surveyed, it could take as long as 43,510 
years to complete the job. Due primarily to this incredibly slow pace 
of Federal land surveys, Alaska's land grant institution received only 
a fraction of the land Congress reserved for it in 1915; in addition to 
its 2,250 acre campus, the University of Alaska received less than 
9,000 acres out of a reservation created for it totaling approximately 
268,000 acres.
  To partially remedy the situation, Congress granted an additional 
100,000 acres to Alaska's land grant college in 1929, but even with 
this additional grant, the total was less than half of the original 
acreage authorized in 1915.
  Further efforts to increase the size of Alaska's higher education 
Federal land grant were made from the 1930s through the 1950s. Several 
bills were submitted to Congress that would have reserved up to 10 
million acres for Alaska's land grant college, but strong opposition, 
primarily from the Department of the Interior, doomed the effort.
   Traditionally, the size of land grants were most often determined by 
a State's population, not by its area. Nevertheless, some of the last 
western States were given generous grants despite their sparse 
populations. For instance, Oklahoma and New Mexico each received about 
1 million acres to support higher education. Alaska received less land 
specifically dedicated for the support of higher education than all but 
one of the contiguous States. Among the 48 States which had received 
Federal land or land scrip to establish land grant colleges, mining 
schools, teachers' colleges, and state universities, only Delaware 
received fewer acres than Alaska. Thus, after statehood, Alaska in 1959 
was in an anomalous position. While the State had received more land 
and a greater percentage of land from the Federal Government than any 
other western State, it ranked next to the bottom of the list in the 
amount of Federal land it had received for higher education.
  Over the next 15 years, controversies regarding Alaska land matters 
continued to boil, as the public domain in Alaska was carved up for the 
first time. In 1971, Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims 
Settlement Act, reserving 44 million acres for Alaska Natives and 
opening the way for the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The 
pipeline marked the start of a national conservation battle in the 
1970s over the future of Alaska's lands, which culminated in 1980 with 
the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, a 
measure which added 104 million acres to the State's conservation 
systems.
  Now, with many of the major Alaska land issues of the 1970s and 1980s 
settled, supporters of the University of Alaska have encouraged State 
and Federal officials to reexamine the question of the university's 
land grant and consider granting the school additional lands in order 
for it to ``achieve parity'' with higher educational systems in other 
States.
  The legislation I am introducing today would achieve this. It would 
grant the University up to 350,000 acres of Federal land. It would do 
this on a matching basis with the State of Alaska for up to a total of 
700,000 acres split equally between the state and Federal Government. 
In other words if Alaska were to grant the University 200,000 acres of 
State land, the Federal Government would grant them to 200,000 acres.
  I believe this is a fair settlement to this issue. It addresses some 
of the needs of higher education in my State of Alaska and allows the 
State and the Federal government to participate in the fix 
equally.
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