[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 4065-4066]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 WESTERN UNITED STATES STUDENTS ARE TREATED UNFAIRLY BECAUSE OF LARGE 
              PORTIONS OF LAND OWNED BY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I wish to present a situation to the 
body that is somewhat unique which we in the West will be talking about 
in greater detail and more frequently as time goes on. I feel competent 
in being able to address this issue, because before I joined this 
august body I spent 16 years in the Utah legislature as Speaker at the 
end; but all 16 years I was a member of the Public Education Finance 
Committee, or Appropriations Committee. I also, as I have frequently 
mentioned on this floor, served for 28 years as a high school teacher 
before I joined this group. Even though I recognize that money does not 
equal education excellence and we can do many things to improve our 
education system without money, at some time, we still have to build 
schools, and teachers at some time still have to eat.
  So I wish to present before the body three factual phenomena of which 
my colleagues may not be aware. First of all, the fastest growth in the 
student population happens to be in the States of the Mountain and 
Pacific time zones. Twelve of the 15 fastest growing States are in the 
West. In the West we have an average growth in our student population 
of 7 percent, where in the East, the average growth is a negative 2.6 
percent. Ten of the 13 States with the highest teacher-student ratio 
are also in the West. And as the map that I am looking at right now 
shows, as far as growth in expenditures per pupil, 12 of the 15 
slowest-growth States also happen to be in the West. The amount of 
money increased to public education for funding of students in the East 
was 57 percent. In the States of the West, it was half of that, at only 
a 27 percent rate.
  Now, the question we should ask is, Why are these red States in here 
that are all encompassed in the West, why are they growing so slowly? 
It is not because we are not taxing our people. Indeed, the tax rate 
for both local and State governments in the West is actually higher 
than what it is in the East. It is not because we are not trying to 
present our portion of the budget for education. In my State of Utah, 
42 percent of the budget goes to public education. If we add higher 
education, then it is up to almost 65 percent of the budget.

[[Page 4066]]

  The reason for it is very simple, and it deals with this particular 
chart. What it means is that land and property tax driven by land 
propel local governments and school funding, and also income brought 
from property propels local government and school funding. The bottom 
line is, as we look at this map, the West land is taken from and 
controlled by the Federal Government. The blue areas within each of 
these States represent the portion of that State which is controlled by 
the Federal Government; and thus, the land is taken off the property 
tax rolls.
  The State of Maine has a whopping .8 percent controlled by the 
Federal Government. New York has .3 percent. The large State of Texas, 
and it was smart when it became a State because they kept their own 
debt, but they also control their own land, only 1.5 percent is 
controlled by the Federal Government. But of the States in the West, 
every one of them has at least 25 percent of their land controlled by 
the Federal Government, and the States with over half of their land 
controlled by the Federal Government are, once again, all found in the 
West. The States of California and Arizona, Wyoming have 40 percent of 
their land controlled by the Federal Government. Oregon is 50 percent. 
Idaho and Alaska are 62 percent. My State is 65 percent, and 83 percent 
of Nevada is owned and controlled by the Federal Government and off the 
tax rolls. On average, 52 percent of the West is owned by the Federal 
Government compared to only 4 percent of the East.
  Now, the bottom line for that means we simply do not have the 
resources to fund our education system accurately and we are falling 
behind other States, and it is an unfortunate concept. There are 
several different ways in which that happens.
  When these States were entered into the Union, there was an enabling 
act which provided for this unfairness to be rectified. That has yet to 
take place, as the Federal Government has changed its policies towards 
land, and we are now talking about an amount of land that has a value 
of close to $14 trillion. Secondly, no property tax can be generated 
from those lands. If we average the acreage at merely $500 per acre and 
compare that with the tax rate that this land could have generated, 
these Western States should have been generating $4 billion, which 
could be used to fund education in the West.
  Now, the Federal Government recognizes that because we have a program 
called PILT, Payment in Lieu of Taxes, in which the Federal Government 
will compensate Western States. The problem is, what happened in the 
year 2001, this land should have generated $4.2 billion. The Federal 
Government compensated these States to the tune of $165 million in the 
PILT program, and all of this money is going to governments that were 
local and, once again, not to education.
  The bottom line, Mr. Speaker, as we will be talking about at some 
time in the future is students in the West should be afforded an equal, 
an equal education opportunity, and they are not. This land is 
controlled by all of us, and we are saying all of us should be paying 
for the benefit, because students in the West are still being 
disproportionately affected unfairly.

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