Posted on 05/29/2002 1:42:06 PM PDT by Utah Girl
A bogus claim is becoming a main weapon to fight selling the federally owned Martin's Cove - the Wyoming site where many Mormon handcart pioneers froze and died in 1856 - to the LDS Church.
The misleading claim is: The sale would create precedent to allow Indians or other religious groups also to obtain federal lands they consider sacred.
Some environmental and preservation groups worry aloud that it could lead to the sale of Devil's Tower or Medicine Wheel in Wyoming to tribes that consider them sacred, much as Mormons consider Martin's Cove sacred.
That worries many Wyoming groups and was the main reason listed by Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., as he announced his opposition to the sale last weekend.
The trouble is that such precedent was already created long ago.
The House Resources Committee found that the federal government has already previously provided public land to private groups - including tribes - for religious purposes. Some examples include:
* Public Law 98-408. It says its purpose was "to convey certain lands (in Arizona) to the Zuni Indian Tribe for religious purposes." It noted the land had been "used since time immemorial for sustenance and the performance of certain religious ceremonies."
* Public Law 104-303. Section 361 of that Water Resources Development Act of 1996 authorizes transfer of 8,560 acres in Wisconsin to the Ho Chunk Nation. It said those "lands are culturally and religiously significant sites of the Ho Chunk Nation."
* Public Law 98-620. Section 10 of that law to enlarge the boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park also enlarged the boundaries of the Havasupai Indian Reservation. One of the reasons was so the lands may be used for traditional purposes, including religious purposes.
* Public Law 91-550. Section 4 added 48,000 acres to a reservation for the Pueblo de Taos Indians in New Mexico. It specified the "Pueblo de Taos Indians shall use the lands for traditional purposes only, such as religious ceremonials."
House Resources Committee Chairman Jim Hansen, R-Utah, who is LDS and is the sponsor of the Martin's Cove bill, noted in a recent hearing some other examples of transferring public land to private groups.
He said Congress has directed the sale of federal land to churches including federal land in Nevada to the Archdiocese of Reno/Las Vegas and federal land in New York to the Bellsville Wesleyan Church.
Also, he noted the Lighthouse Preservation Act - now federal law - calls for selling lighthouses on the National Historic Register to local governments and private groups that demonstrate financial ability to care for them. The federal government recognizes it doesn't have the resources to do justice to all of them.
Hansen argues that isn't much different than the LDS Church buying Martin's Cove, which he says was not treated well by the federal government for lack of resources.
The cove was not accessible to the public until the church bought the adjacent Sun Ranch five years ago and built trails into the area after working out permission with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
On its private land there, the church has also built a visitors center, a museum, wells, public restrooms, parking lots, campgrounds, bridges and trails to the cove. More than 250,000 people have visited the remote cove in recent years because of those facilities.
Hansen's Resources Committee recently endorsed the bill and sent it to the full House with only one dissenting vote - from Wyoming's lone representative, Republican Barbara Cubin. But Cubin added language to the bill directing that it's passage should not be used as precedent for any other land transfer between the federal government and private groups.
The ranking Democrat on the Resources Committee, Nick J. Rahall of West Virginia, suggests that Congress look closely at any such transfer to see if they are in the public interest. He said he concluded that the sale of Martin's Cove would be, because the LDS Church would likely put more money and resources into the site than the BLM could.
Rahall also said the purposes of the church and government also are the same in this case: increasing public access to the cove and helping people better understand what occurred there. The bill would also require free access to the cove forever.
If the Martin's Cove sale did create any precedent, it would be that of allowing a private group to spend its resources to spruce up a site on the condition that tourists must be allowed to visit for free. That would appear to be a good thing, since precedent already set elsewhere allows transfer of public land for private religious use.
Frankly, I think we could use a Constitutional amendment prohibiting the federal government from owning land. Though off hand, I can't think of anything in the Constitution which gives the federal government the right to buy and own land in the first place, and since all rights not specifically granted to the federal government are reserved to the States . . .
Allow me to supply Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 16:
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings
There's your answer.
If you prohibit the Federal government from owning land, who gets the Minot AFB missile fields?
Please note that the Constitution specifically provides for eminent domain via the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment.
There is NO way that anyone would "lease" land out for a bombing range. The land becomes permanently unusable.
And you pointed out that stretches of undeveloped land do not fit the description of "needful buildings." But that IS a bombing range--a vast stretch of undeveloped land.
You just have to ignore Article VI of the Constitution for that approach to work:
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
In short, the state Constitution clauses forbidding federal ownership of land would simply be declared null and void.
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