White Paper: Options for Managing the Land Protection Component of the PRRIP

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Land Entity White Paper November 30, 1999 IV. Legal Authorities and Constraints Appendix A provides a far more detailed discussion of the legal constraints on each of the four governments regarding participation in a joint federal /state /private effort to implement habitat measures. The items below highlight areas where federal or state law or regulation appears most likely to affect the structure 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 are few requirements imposed by any government. In fact, there are few models 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 non- legal factors such as those listed in section V. A. Authorities to Participate Cooperatively There are few applicable models now in use for the Program to follow in creating a land entity, though there appears to be ample authority to be creative in designing an entity to suit the Program. • The federal government is the most confining in its authorities, because they are based on a federal assistance model. While DOI's policy and regulations encourage DOI to work cooperatively with the states, joint efforts elsewhere have been made to fit conventional 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 to a number of conditions. Several key conditions are discussed in the following section. • Nebraska has wide options on paper, but little applicable experience in using them. Nebraska law explicitly authorizes. The Interlocal Cooperation Act, Nebraska Revised Statutes Annotated, Secs. 13 -801 et seq., provides broad authority to create legal and administrative entities to carry out joint governmental actions involving federal, state, foreign state and local entities. The statute suggests that most Land Entity options would be legal for Nebraska to accept, so long Nebraska funds contributed to a Program could not be spent against the state's will, 1997 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 11. However, there are no models of agreements or entities with significant stakeholder or non - Nebraska government involvement. The statute has been used for smaller interagency actions among local governments, and for purely intrastate activities. • Wyoming's authorities are somewhat vague. While they appear to offer wide options, Wyoming also has little applicable experience with federal/state /foreign state entities. The Intergovernmental Cooperation Act, Wyoming Stat. Ann., Sec. 16 -1 -101, is very similar to the Nebraska 6