FISCAL
NOTE
WEST virginia Legislature
2017 regular session
By
to the Committee on Energy then Finance.]
A BILL to amend and
reenact §5A-11-3 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, relating to
collecting rents and royalties from leases of public lands; and providing that
rents and royalties from leases of the minerals under the state's rivers and
streams shall be expended for road paving and maintenance.
Be it enacted by the
Legislature of West Virginia:
That §5A-11-3 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as
amended, be amended and reenacted 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 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 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 proceeds, rents, royalties and other payments from land sales,
exchanges and mineral rights leasing for public lands owned, managed or
controlled by the Adjutant General's Department will be
retained in a fund managed by the Adjutant General in accordance with article
six, chapter fifteen of the code: Provided
further, That except as follows:
(1) All rents, royalties and other payments from mineral
leases derived from 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;
(2) All rents and royalties from mineral leases, entered on
or after July 1, 2017, relating to or derived from the rivers and streams of
the state shall be deposited into the State Road Fund to be expended for
maintenance, contract paving and secondary road maintenance purposes;
(3) All rents and royalties from mineral leases, entered prior
to July 1, 2017, relating to or derived from the rivers and streams of the
state shall be retained by the Division of Natural Resources;
(4) All payments, other than rents and royalties, from
mineral leases respecting the rivers and streams of the state shall be retained
by the Division of Natural Resources; and
(5) All rents, royalties and other payments from land sales,
exchanges and mineral rights leasing for public lands owned, managed or
controlled by the Adjutant General’s Department will be retained in a fund
managed by the Adjutant General in accordance with article six, chapter fifteen
of the code.
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 agencies, institutions, or departments located on the affected public
lands, or for which the corporation was acting or to benefit any state
agencies, institutions, or departments 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) Except as otherwise provided by law, when the corporation
exercises its powers, the corporation will coordinate with other state
agencies, institutions, and departments in order to develop and execute plans
to utilize mineral rights which benefit their operations or the operations of
any other state agencies, institutions, or departments.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to provide that
the rents and royalties from future mineral leases in respect of the state's
rivers and streams shall be dedicated to road maintenance and paving.
Strike-throughs indicate language
that would be stricken from a heading or the present law and underscoring
indicates new language that would be added.