BOARD01372

• Board Meeting Date: 11/17/1976
• Description: Agenda, Minutes, Resolution
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

As a result of those leases, rather large sums of money accrued to the
state of Colorado under the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920. This
innnediate1y raised the question or the problem that the--federa1 act
was too restrictive. These towns and counties have other ,problems,
than those relating strictly ~o roads and schools - water problems and
sewage problems and all the municipal prob1~ms that are attendant with
the rapid deve'lopment of many of the communities in the state, 'such, as
are being experienced now by the town of Craig, which is the most
rapidly growing town ,in Colorado 'today. ^

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Actually the state has received seventy-seven million dollars to date
from the ~easing of the tracts CA and CB. In 1975, a move was made in
Congress to amend the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 to, ,increase the states I
share. This was a Wyoming oriented movement, because Wyoming is the
largest single state, beneficiary of the Mineral Leasing Fund. Colorado
is not far behind. Colorado, Wyoming and Utah and Montana are some of
the principal states affected by the Mineral Leasing Fund, because they
have' great coal deposits, along with'oi1 shale, oil and gas.

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This Board, at that time, adopted a motiorr and directed me ,to, write to
the congressional delegation 'to protest that increase in funding,
because .the increase would' come ,at the ,expense of the reclamation fund.
We opposed it until such time as the Secretary of the Interior could be
heard 'on the matter.

There were no public hearings or:hearings of any kind on the move to
amend the Mineral Leasing Act. It was simply handled by amendments on
the floor of the Senate.

We requested that the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner
of Reclamation be heard on this point. As a 'result, the Commissioner
of Reclamation and the Secretary were invited to testify.. They ,testified
that in their opinion the ,reduction of the mineral leasing fund through
additional dedication of funds to the states would have no significant
effect upon the reclamation program.

Following that ,testimony, I then'wrote to all members of the congressional
delegation stating that we had no objection to greater revenues accruing
to the state, provided that those revenues could be used for purposes,
in addition to roads and schools. I pointed out that the cities and
towns were having problems in developing additional water supplies.

The congressional delegations of Wyoming and Colorado then got together
and an amendment was offered by Congressman James Johnson of Colorado
,to the effect that the additional twelve and.a half percent, which was' I
the figure Congress arrived at which would go to the states, from
thirty-seven and a half to fifty percent, but the additional twelve and
a half percent could be used for purposes other than roads and schools,
as the state legislature might direct.

Congressman Johnson offered a further amendment to the effect that all
funds received from,the leasing of the oil shale tracts CA and CB in
Colorado could be used for any purpose as long as,it was a public'
function. So all of that money was opened up then for water resource ,

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