White Paper: Option for Land Protection Component

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Land Entity White Paper Novernber 30, 1999 IV. Legal Authorities and Coostraints Appendix A pravides a far more detailed discussian of the legal canstraints on each of the four governments regarding participation in a jpint federaUstate/private effort to implement habitat measures. The items below highlight areas where federal ar state law or regulation appears most likely to affect the stnictua-e created to manage the land component of the Program. Essentially, so long as an adequate system accounts for state and federal funding and assures that it is spent as intended, there a.re few requirements imposed by any gavernment. In fact, there are few madels of cooperative efforts now in use, and each is structured differently, suggesting that most Land Entity options are legally available if desired. Choices appear most likely to be made on the basis of nnn- legal factors snch as those listed in section V. A. Autharities ta Particrpate Cooperatively There are few applicable modejs now in use for the Program to follaw in creating a land entity, though therc appears to be ampte authority to be creative in designing an entity to suit the Program_ • The federal govemment is the most confining in its autharities, because they are based on a federal assistance model. While DOI's policy and regulations encourage DQI to work cooperatively with the states, joint efforts elsewhere have been made to fit conventionat funding arrangements in the form of federal grants or cooperative "assistance agreements." These are basically contractual arrangements, where a state or non-profit entity receives federal funds subject ta a number of conditions. Several key conditions are discussed in the following section. Nebraska has vride aptions on paper, but little applicable experience in using #hem. Nebraska law explicitly authorizes. The Interlocal Cooperation Act, Nebraska Revised Statutes Annotated, Secs. 13-801 et seq., provides braad authority to crea#e legal and administrative entities to carry out joint governmental actians involaing federal, state, foreign state and lvcat entities. The statute suggests that most Land Entity options would be legal for Nebraska to accept, so long Nehraska funds contributed to a Program couid not be spent against the state's will, 1997 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 11. However, there are na models of agreernents or entities with significant stakehvlder or non-Nebraska govemment involvement. The statute has been used for smaller interagency actions amang local governments, and for purely intrastate activities. • Wyoming's authorities are somewhat vague. While they appear to offer wide options, Wyoming alsa has little appticable experience with federaUstate/foreign state entities. The Intergovernmental Cooperation Act, Wyaming Stat. Ann., Sec, 16-1-101, is very similar to the Nebraska 6