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Show PILTPlan Will Help Pay Federal Lands Services Senator Orrin Hatch is putting on a full court press to build momentum mo-mentum for his plan to assure that Utah's rural counties receive full compensation for services they provide pro-vide on federal lands. Working through the Western Senate Coalition which he co-chairs, co-chairs, Hatch is pressing Congressional Congres-sional appropriations to provide full funding for the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program. While PILT is budgeted to receive $225 million each year to reimburse localities lo-calities for the many services they must provide to support federal lands, according to Hatch traditionally tradi-tionally only half that amount has been appropriated. "Counties are increasingly burdened bur-dened by the obligation to provide police, search and rescue, fire protection, pro-tection, garbage collection, and public road maintenance services," Hatch said. "It's time our counties, coun-ties, especially Utah counties, are fully compensated for all they do on federal lands." The program benefits counties throughout the nation, but officials from Utah's counties initiated a plan to achieve full funding for PIT. With Hatch's support, they then sold their plan to key players in Congress. Hatch said they are making progress pro-gress in the Senate. He revealed that key players, including influential influ-ential Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici and Energy Committee Com-mittee Chair Frank Murkowski have now endorsed the Utah Counties' Coun-ties' plan to provide $20 million increase in the PILT program each year until the program is fully funded. Hatch has now contacted every member of the Western Senate Coalition, Coa-lition, about a third of the Senate, and invited them to support the full funding by signing a letter to the Appropriations Committee. Hatch said, "I'm very happy about the response I've received so far. I credit that success to the hard work of the Utah County Commissioners Commis-sioners who have been beating down the doors in Congress to make sure their case is given a fair hearing." Garfield County Commissioner Louise Liston was among those contacting senators about the proposed pro-posed PILT plan. |
