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Show SAGEBRUSH RE YouMari; & I n Washi ngtonX By U.S. Senator Orrin G. Hatch BELLI ON SWEEPING THE WEST News about Sagebrush Rebellion out here in the West has finally penetrated past the Mississippi Mississip-pi River and on over to the concrete jungles of the Eastern Seaboard. The word is out back East -folks in the West, and especially in our own Utah, have had enough and they are doing something dramatic and positive posi-tive about transfer of our Western lands from the bureaucratic clutches . of Washington to the people through r their state and local governments. For years, ever since our state ' and most of our sister states of the ? West came into the federal union, we have been forced to endure an extra ' ordinary amount of direct federal., control and regulation over our very livelihoods and essential resources. This is because when we became a state, we had to accept federal ; ownership of vast portions of our lands as a condition of statehood, : Unlike states east of the 100th Meridian Meri-dian where Uncle Sam owns virtually no land, in our states the people own virtually none of the very lands which make up their states. Kept For Others In our own state of Utah, for ex-. ample, the federal bureaucrats have ' direct control over almost 70 of our ., land because Washington retains the title. In Alaska, the figure is close to 90. In Nevada, it is over 87; We have been little more than an economic eco-nomic fiefdom kept for the benefit of . everybody else in America but us. I believe we can and should change -this situation. I have introduced .a bill, the . Western Lands Distribution and Regional Equalization Act of 1979, that will transfer, title to millions of acres of our lands now held by Washington to our people via the state governments. The bill already has 1 6 co-sponsors and it was recent-ry recent-ry endorsed by The Western Coalition Coali-tion on Public Lands, which includes representatives of state and local ' governments from throughout the West, with members of 12 state Attorneys At-torneys Generals' offices. Representatives Represen-tatives of the Western Interstate Region of the National Association of Counties, Jed by San Juan County's Cal Black, have also pledged their unanimous support Benefits For All These ' officials and millions of our fellow Westerners support transfer, trans-fer, of these lands from the federal bureaucracy because the action will erase the long-standing legal inequities ine-quities that resulted from Washington's Washing-ton's massive ownership in our states. Transfer will also remove the most irritating aspects of the extreme ' bureaucratic regulations, especially those of the BLM, which make earning earn-ing a living such a frustrating task for many of our ranchers, sheepmen and energy producers. In addition, with . Utahns freed to develop Utah re-.. re-.. sponsibly, the entire nation will benefit- from, the new resources '. which will result, especially those in the energy field. Millions of new jobs and opportunities for Utahns and ' Americanscan only help us all. . |