Senate Bill No. 238
(By Senators White, Green, Laird, Yost, Deem, Stollings, Chafin
and D. Facemire)
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[Introduced January 20, 2010; referred to the Committee
on the Judiciary; and then to the Committee on Finance.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact §5A-11-3 and §5A-11-6 of the Code of
West Virginia, 1931, as amended, all relating to the Public
Land Corporation; powers and duties; use of mineral rights
to benefit state agencies, institutions or departments;
competitive bidding and notice requirements before the
development or extraction of minerals on certain lands; and
related standards.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §5A-11-3 and §5A-11-6 of the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, be amended and reenacted, all to read as
follows:
ARTICLE 11. PUBLIC LAND CORPORATION.
§5A-11-3. Public Land Corporation, powers and duties.
(a) The corporation is hereby authorized and empowered to:
(1) Acquire from any persons or the State Auditor or any local, state or federal agency, by purchase, lease or other
agreement, any lands necessary and required for public use;
(2) Acquire by purchase, condemnation, lease or agreement,
receive by gifts and devises or exchange, rights-of-way,
easements, waters and minerals suitable for public use;
(3) Sell or exchange public lands where it is determined
that the sale or exchange of such tract meets any or all of the
following disposal criteria:
(A) The tract was acquired for a specific purpose and the
tract is no longer required for that or any other state purpose;
(B) Disposal of the tract serves important public objectives
including, but not limited to, expansion of communities and
economic development which cannot be achieved on lands other than
public lands and which clearly outweigh other public objectives
and values including, but not limited to, recreation and scenic
values which would be served by maintaining the tract in state
ownership; or
(C) The tract, because of its location or other
characteristics, is difficult and uneconomic to manage as part of
the public lands and is not suitable for management by another
state department or agency.
(4) Sell, purchase or exchange lands or stumpage for the
purpose of consolidating lands under state or federal government
administration subject to the disposal criteria specified in
subdivision (3) of this subsection;
(5) Negotiate and effect loans or grants from the government
of the United States or any agency thereof for acquisition and
development of lands as may be authorized by law to be acquired
for public use;
(6) Expend the income from the use and development of public
lands for the following purposes:
(A) Liquidate obligations incurred in the acquisition,
development and administration of lands, until all obligations
have been fully discharged;
(B) Purchase, develop, restore and preserve for public use,
sites, structures, objects and documents of prehistoric,
historical, archaeological, recreational, architectural and
cultural significance to the State of West Virginia; and
(C) Obtain grants or matching moneys available from the
government of the United States or any of its instrumentalities
for prehistoric, historic, archaeological, recreational,
architectural and cultural purposes.
(7) Designate lands, to which it has title, for development
and administration for the public use including recreation,
wildlife stock grazing, agricultural rehabilitation and
homesteading or other conservation activities;
(8) Enter into leases as a lessor for the development and
extraction of minerals, including coal, oil, gas, sand or gravel
on behalf of itself or any state agency, institution or
department, except as otherwise circumscribed herein:
Provided, That leases for the development and extraction of minerals shall
be made in accordance with the provisions of sections five and
six of this article. The corporation
or state agency,
institution or department for which it is acting shall reserve
title and ownership to the mineral rights in all cases;
(9) Convey, assign or allot lands to the title or custody of
proper departments or other agencies of state government for
administration and control within the functions of departments or
other agencies as provided by law;
(10) Make proper lands available for the purpose of
cooperating with the government of the United States in the
relief of unemployment and hardship or for any other public
purpose.
(b) There is hereby continued in the State Treasury a
special Public Land Corporation Fund into which shall be paid all
proceeds from public land sales and exchanges and rents,
royalties and other payments from mineral leases:
Provided, That
all royalties and payments derived from rivers, streams or public
lands acquired or managed by the Division of Natural Resources
pursuant to section seven, article one, chapter twenty of this
code and section two, article five, chapter twenty of this code
shall be retained by the Division of Natural Resources:
Provided, however, That all free gas, sand, gravel or other
natural resources derived from a lease or contract made pursuant
to this article will be used to benefit the state agency, institution or department for which the corporation was acting or
to benefit any state agency, institution or department having
adjacent property. The corporation may acquire public lands from
use of the payments made to the fund, along with any interest
accruing to the fund. The corporation shall report annually,
just prior to the beginning of the regular session of the
Legislature, to the finance committees of the Legislature on the
financial condition of the special fund. The corporation shall
report annually to the Legislature on its public land holdings
and all its leases, its financial condition and its operations
and shall make such recommendations to the Legislature concerning
the acquisition, leasing, development, disposition and use of
public lands.
(c) All state agencies, institutions, divisions and
departments shall make an inventory of the public lands of the
state as may be by law specifically allocated to and used by each
and provide to the corporation a list of such public lands and
minerals, including their current use, intended use or best use
to which lands and minerals may be put:
Provided, That the
Division of Highways need not provide the inventory of public
lands allocated to and used by it, and the Division of Natural
Resources need not provide the inventory of rivers, streams and
public lands acquired or managed by it. The inventory shall
identify those parcels of land which have no present or
foreseeable useful purpose to the State of West Virginia. The inventory shall be submitted annually to the corporation by
August 1. The corporation shall compile the inventory of all
public lands and minerals and report annually to the Legislature
by no later than January 1, on its public lands and minerals and
the lands and minerals of the other agencies, institutions,
divisions or departments of this state which are required to
report their holdings to the corporation as set forth in this
subsection, and its financial condition and its operations.
(d) The corporation will coordinate with other state
agencies, institutions and departments in order to develop and
execute plans to utilize those organizations' mineral rights
which benefit their operations or the operations of any other
state agency, institution or department.
§5A-11-6. Competitive bidding and notice requirements before the
development or extraction of minerals on certain
lands; related standards.
(a) The corporation may,
for itself or on behalf of any
state agency, institution or department, enter into a lease or
contract for the development of minerals, including, but not
limited to, coal, gas, oil, sand or gravel on or under lands in
which the corporation holds any right, title or interest:
Provided, That no lease or contract may be entered into for the
extraction and removal of minerals by surface mining or auger
mining of coal.
(b) With the exception of deep mining operations which are already in progress and permitted as of July 5, 1989, the
extraction of coal by deep mining methods under state forests or
wildlife refuges may be permitted only if the lease or contract
provides that no entries, portals, air shafts or other incursions
upon and into the land incident to the mining operations may be
placed or constructed upon the lands or within three thousand
feet of its boundary.
(c) Any lease or contract entered into by the corporation
for the development of minerals shall reserve to the state all
rights to subjacent surface support with which the state is
seized or possessed at the time of such lease or contract.
(d) Notwithstanding any other provisions of the code to the
contrary, nothing herein may be construed to permit extraction of
minerals by any method from, on or under any state park or state
recreation area, nor the extraction of minerals by strip or auger
mining upon any state forest or wildlife refuge.
(e) The corporation may enter into a lease or contract for
the development of minerals where the lease or contract is not
prohibited by any other provisions of this code, only after
receiving sealed bids therefor, after notice by publication as a
Class II legal advertisement in compliance with the provisions of
article three, chapter fifty-nine of this code. The area for
publication shall be each county in which the minerals are
located.
(f) The minerals so advertised may be leased or contracted for development at not less than the fair market value, as
determined by an appraisal made by an independent person or firm
chosen by the corporation, to the highest responsible bidder, who
shall give bond for the proper performance of the contract or
lease as the corporation designates:
Provided, That the
corporation may reject any and all bids and to readvertise for
bids.
(g) If the provisions of this section have been complied
with, and no bid equal to or in excess of the fair market value
is received, the corporation may, at any time during a period of
six months after the opening of the bids, lease or contract for
the development of the minerals, but the lease or contract price
may not be less than the fair market value.
(h) Any lease or contract for the development of minerals
entered into after the effective date of this section shall be
made in accordance with the provisions of this section and
section five of this article.
(i) The corporation will consult with the office of the
Attorney General to assist the corporation in carrying out the
provisions of this section.
(j) The corporation shall consult with an independent
mineral consultant and any other competent third parties with
experience and expertise in the leasing of minerals, to assist
the corporation in carrying out the provisions of this section,
including determining fair market value and negotiating terms and conditions of mineral leases.
(k) Once the lessee commences the production of minerals and
royalties become due and are paid to the Public Land Corporation,
the Public Land Corporation shall hire an independent auditing
firm to periodically review the lessee's books and accounts for
compliance of payment of appropriate royalties due the Public
Land Corporation for its minerals as produced under the lease
agreement.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to allow the Public Land
Corporation to enter into leases and contracts regarding mineral
rights on behalf of other state agencies, institutions and
departments to benefit their operations.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken
from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language
that would be added.
This bill was recommended for introduction and passage
during the 2010 Regular Session of the Legislature by the
Legislative Oversight Committee on Regional Jail and Correctional
Facility Authority.