Hearings

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:45 a.m., in the committee room, New House Office Building, Hon. Gracie Pfost (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Mrs. Prost. The Subcommittee on Public Lands will now come to order for the consideration of H.R. 7788, by Chairman Aspinall, by request, and H.R. 7789, by Congressman Cunningham, by request, identical bills to authorize the classification, segregation, lease, and sale of public land for urban, business, and occupancy sites, to repeal obsolete statutes, and for other purposes, and related bills: H.R. 1992 by Congressman Baring; and H.R. 5277 by Congressman Saund.

Without objection, the bills, H.R. 7788, H.R. 1992, and H.R. 5277 will be placed in the record at this point together with the executive communication from the Department dated June 14, 1961, and report dated August 4, 1961.

(The bills, executive communication, and report follow :)

[H.R. 7788, 87th Cong., 1st sess.]

A BILL To authorize the classification, segregation, lease, and sale of public land for urban, business, and occupancy sites, to repeal obsolete statutes, and for other purposes

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act may be cited as the "Public Lands Act of 1961".

SEC. 2. For the purposes of this Act

(a) The word "Secretary" means the Secretary of the Interior.

(b) The term "public lands" means all public lands (including minerals, vegetative, and other resources) in the United States, including lands within reservations formed from the public domain and other lands permanently or temporarily withdrawn from any or all forms of appropriation provided for in the public land laws, except (1) public lands in any national forest or national wildlife refuge or other widlife management areas, or areas administered by the Secretary of the Interior through the National Park Service, (2) the revested Oregon and California Railroad or the reconveyed Coos Bay Wagon Road grant lands in the State of Oregon, (3) any Indian lands or lands set aside or held for the use or benefit of Indians, (4) public water reserves which the Secretary finds are needed by the public for the use, control, or conservation of water, and (5) public lands which the Secretary determines are chiefly valuable for minerals other than coal, phosphate, sodium, potassium, oil, gas, oil shale, native asphalt, solid and semisolid bitumen, and bituminous rock (including oil-impregnated rock or sands from which oil is recoverable only by special treatment after the deposit is mined or quarried), and for lands in the States of Louisiana and New Mexico sulfur also.

(c) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (b) of this section, the term "public lands," insofar as the Act authorizes leasing of lands for occupancy purposes, includes the revested Oregon and California Railroad and the reconveyed Coos Bay Wagon Road grant lands in the State of Oregon.

(d) Notwithstanding the provisions of susection (b) of this section the term "public lands," insofar as it authorizes the Secretary to subdivide and dispose of lands for urban purposes under section 6 of this Act, includes any lands in the State of Alaska that are held by the United States for the use or benefit of Indians without a recognition of a compensable title in the Indians and that are outside any reserve for Indians or administrative use.

(e) The words "subdivide" and "subdivision" refer to the surveying and platting of lands into lots, blocks, streets, alleys, reserves for public purposes, rights-of-way, and such other tracts as the Secretary finds suitable for proper development of lands for urban purposes or for occupancy purposes.

(f) The term “urban purposes" means any purpose, including commercial, related to the development of an urban or suburban residential community.

(g) The term "business purposes" includes, without limiting the meaning thereof, commercial and industrial activities (including the milling or processing of natural products) but does not include crop agriculture or the removal, mining, extraction, or harvesting of natural products in their natural state.

(h) The term "occupancy purpose" means recreational, residential, business, or community use of separate individual sites of five acres or less and any purpose, including commercial, related to the development of a rural recreational community.

(i) The term “qualified individual" means (1) any individual who is a citizen of the United States aged twenty-one years or more, (2) any partnership or association, each of the members of which is a citizen of the United States aged twenty-one years or more, and (3) any corporation, including nonprofit corporations, organized under the laws of the United States, or of any State thereof, and authorized to do business in the State in which the land is located.

(j) The term "qualified governmental agency" means any of the following, including their lawful agents and instrumentalities: (1) the State within which the land is located, (2) the county or municipality or other local government subdivision within which the land is located, and (3) any municipality within convenient access to the lands: Provided, That the lands are within the same State as the municipality.

(k) The word "concurrence", in addition to its usual connotation, also means with the consent of the head of the Federal department or agency or of the State or local governmental unit, in any case where the lands involved have been withdrawn in aid of a function of a Federal department or agency other than the Department of the Interior, or of a State, county, municipality, water district, or local governmental subdivision or agency.

(1) The word "value" means, in connection with sales, the fair market value of land, including all mineral and other interests in land not to be reserved to the United States under this Act, and, in connection with leases, the fair market rental of land, in either case as determined by the Secretary by appraisal or otherwise, taking into consideration all factors affecting market value.

(m) The term "bona fide occupant" means (1) any person who, at the time when public lands are segregated under the provision of this Act, has any right of possession or occupancy of any such lands which is based upon a settlement. entry, location, or other action initiated and maintained in accordance with any statute other than this Act and which, if perfected under the statute, would enable such person to obtain title to such lands, and (2) any person who, at the time of such segregation, has any right of possession or occupancy of any such lands (including a right based on actual possession under section 8 of the Act of May 17, 1884 (23 Stat. 24)) which is subject to extinguishment or termination at will by the United States and is not open to perfection under any statute other than this Act, but which, under the provisions of law applicable to the lands immediately prior to the segregation thereof, is protected against intrusion or invasion by third persons until it is extinguished or terminated by authority of the United States, and (3) any other person who meets such requirements for the recognition of an equity in segregated lands, including, in the case of an Indian in Alaska, an equity based on considerations of economic need as may be prescribed by the regulations issued under this Act;

(n) The word "Indian" means Indian, Eskimo, or Aleut and any tribe, band, or community thereof.

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