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Show 30 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT Oregon and 25 percent to the counties in which the lands were located, with 40 percent going into the Reclamation Fund.73 The share of the county and state governments in Oregon from timber sales on the Oregon & California lands was later raised to 75 percent. The last important allocation of income from public lands to local governments came with the creation of the grazing districts under the Taylor Grazing Act and the distribution of 12 Yi percent of income to the states.74 In 1966 the western states received from the federally managed public lands $105,906,238. Oregon was far in the lead in the amount it received, with Washington, Wyoming, and California following.75 Receipts of Leading States Under the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 Total Receipts State 1966 1920-1966 Alaska 8,605,378 61,860,378 California 7,049,512 203,638,526 Colorado 8,668,121 157,301,126 Montana 5,696,158 71,375,965 New Mexico 25,067,058 266,266,555 Utah 9,521,296 111,290,096 Wyoming 39,439,811 581,022,165 Total 107,956,095 1,502,034,987 Western Dissatisfaction Not Mollified That portion of the income from Federal lands which was not distributed to the states in which it originated and which did not flow into the Reclamation Fund was in large measure used to build access roads to tim- 73 Act of June 9, 1916, 39 Stat. Part 1, p. 222. 74 For a list of the laws allocating portions of the proceeds from public land sales and leases and the percentages allocated see Bureau of Land Management, Public Land Statistics, 1966, p. 177. 76 Public Land Statistics, 1966, pp. 175, 178; Forest Service, Report, 1966, computed from pp. 44 and 56. bered areas, improve the carrying capacity of ranges, maintain firefighting staff and equipment, and do research on forestry and grazing problems. Notwithstanding these facts, many westerners were not satisfied. It rankled with them that the Federal government continued to own and administer the natural resources to such a large extent. At the Western Governors' Conference in 1913 and 1914 a demand was voiced for the cession of all remaining public lands to the states in which they were located. Short of that the conference asked for 5 percent of the remaining lands for the building of roads, 10 percent for irrigation beyond the existing subsidy for that purpose, the donation of power sites, the control of water by the states, and the speedy disposal of the last remaining public lands.76 Elsewhere in this study it will be seen that the livestock interests at times favored cession of the lands to the states and welcomed President Hoover's proposal, as advanced by the Garfield Commission, that the remaining public lands, being mostly grazing lands, should be given to the states, though without their minerals. The complaint of the public land states that they had not been treated as equals would not be silenced. One may sum up by saying that until 1953 the older states, whether originally public land states or not, had won a major objective in that they had succeeded in inducing Congress to retain in Federal ownership the national forests, national parks, grazing lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, and other miscellaneous reserves and after 1933 had greatly reduced the alienation of the public lands. On the other hand, substantial income from the cutting of timber, grazing fees, mineral royalties, and leases of power sites are being used for reclamation development in the West or being paid to the western states for roads and schools. 78 Cong. Record, 63d Cong., 2d sess., April 20, 1914, pp. 6894-6895. |