Â鶹´«Ã½

History

The Â鶹´«Ã½ (Â鶹´«Ã½) is a land-grant institution that was formally established by the Alaska Territorial Legislature as the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines in 1917. As a land-grant institution, Â鶹´«Ã½ was due to receive federal lands within Alaska as a way of providing long-term stable funding for public higher education. However, Â鶹´«Ã½ only received about 150,000 acres of its approximately 500,000-acre entitlement and continues to operate with a substantial deficit ever since (click here for more information on that deficit and the history of Â鶹´«Ã½'s land grants).

This deficit has long been seen as an issue with the . When drafting the Alaska Statehood Act, Congress incorporated Â鶹´«Ã½'s remaining land entitlement into the approximately 105,000,000 acres of lands granted to the State of Alaska () with the intent that the Alaska Legislature would complete Â鶹´«Ã½'s entitlement. Unfortunately, complicated legal matters prevented the State from conveying additional lands from of the State's entitlement to Â鶹´«Ã½. The last attempt by the State to complete Â鶹´«Ã½'s entitlement was struck down by the Alaska Supreme Court on a constitutionality issue. Since all State remedies were exhausted, a federal solution was required.

2022 Land Grant Initiative

The first step towards remedying Â鶹´«Ã½'s land grant deficit was securing a way, consistent with the Alaska Constitution, for the State and Federal Governments to fulfill the Alaska Statehood Act commitment to provide Â鶹´«Ã½ with the rest of its land grant. Thanks to the incredible work of Alaska's Congressional Delegation, and in particular Senator Lisa Murkowski, a federal bill was drafted that provides a mechanism for the U.S. to convey lands from Alaska's remaining statehood entitlement to Â鶹´«Ã½. This bill, previously titled the Â鶹´«Ã½ Fiscal Foundation Act, was incorporated into an end-of-2022 omnibus appropriations bill that was signed into law by President Biden (). This law provides Â鶹´«Ã½ four years to:

• Identify and select 500,000 acres of State valid or top-filed general selection lands
• Secure concurrence on its selections from the State

The law also directs the Secretary of the Interior to convey up to 360,000 acres of Â鶹´«Ã½'s 500,000 acres of selections; however, the law does not dictate when the lands are to be conveyed.

Steps of the 2022 Land Grant Initiative

Now that a federal mechanism which promises to remedy Â鶹´«Ã½'s land grant deficit is in place, the Â鶹´«Ã½ must select 500,000 acres of land from the State's remaining general selections. This selection process is complex - requiring thorough research of State and Federal records - but can be generalized into the following three steps.

• Â鶹´«Ã½ Land Management (Â鶹´«Ã½LM) identifies proposed selections
• Â鶹´«Ã½LM relies on multiple datasets to review millions of acres of lands to identify lands which may suit its management portfolio;
• Proposed selections are reviewed for:
• Potential issues with state and federal agencies;
• Whether the lands can be selected by Â鶹´«Ã½;
• Potential sources of contamination;
• Culturally significant resources;
• Many more metrics.

• Â鶹´«Ã½LM submits the proposed selections to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Division of Mining, Land and Water (DMLW) and state adjudication begins;
• DMLW seeks input from various state agencies;
• DMLW solicits public comment on the identified lands;
• DMLW issues a decision on whether or not to support the University's proposed selection.

• The University issues a letter to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) informing them of the selection and the State issues a letter to the BLM informing the BLM that the State concurs with Â鶹´«Ã½'s selection and of the State's conditional relinquishment in favor of Â鶹´«Ã½'s selection.
• BLM adjudicates the selection in preparation for conveyance to Â鶹´«Ã½;
• If the selection is already surveyed, then BLM may directly issue a Patent;
• If the selection needs surveyed, then the BLM may issue a Tentative Approval;
• Tentative Approvals will be followed up by a Patent once the selection is surveyed.

Â鶹´«Ã½LM is currently working to identify 500,000 acres of lands and secure State concurrence before the December 29, 2026 selection deadline. Although Â鶹´«Ã½ will select 500,000 acres, Â鶹´«Ã½ can only receive 360,000 acres from the Secretary of the Interior. This idea of selecting additional lands over the total amount of what can actually be conveyed is called over selecting. It is important for Â鶹´«Ã½ to over select so that Â鶹´«Ã½ can ensure it will receive the total 360,000 acres of lands even if some of its selections cannot be conveyed. It is hard to know when the first conveyance of land from the 2022 Land Grant Initiative will occur, but it will likely take several years following this deadline.