Duluth News Tribune
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By Rep. Chip Cravaack

In accordance with our state Constitution, Minnesota-owned school trust lands annually generate millions of dollars for public schools. Last year, timber sales, peat harvesting, mining and leasing on school trust lands generated $23 million for public schools.

Today, approximately 86,000 acres of inaccessible, state-owned school trust lands remain locked within the borders of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Due to their location in a federal wilderness area, these school trust lands cannot be managed to generate job growth and money for Minnesota public education.

To resolve this problem, a broad bipartisan coalition of legislators — including leaders like Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia; Rep. David Hancock, R-Bemidji; Rep. John Persell, DFL-Bemidji; and Sen. John Carlson, R-Bemidji — sent a land-exchange proposal to Gov. Mark Dayton who later signed the bill into law. The state-enacted bill would give the state-owned land in the BWCAW to the federal government in exchange for giving Minnesota an equal amount of federal land outside of the BWCAW. Importantly, this bill would not take away a single environmental protection or regulation, and the BWCAW and its external borders would remain unchanged.

Make no mistake, this was a huge win for our state and our schools and a true victory over ideologically opposed special interests that tried for years to block it.

Rep. Denise Dittrich, DFL-Champlin, a champion for school trust reform and a Permanent School Fund trustee, stated: “We have made great progress in honoring our trust obligations in the state of Minnesota. Yet we have one outstanding issue that only Congress can facilitate.”

To finalize the state-passed exchange, I introduced H.R. 5544, the Minnesota Education Investment and Employment Act. Once enacted, Gov. Dayton will be able to begin working with the United States Forest Service (USFS) to choose the parcels of land Minnesota is to receive. To prevent radical environmentalists from tying up the land exchange in court for years and consequently draining our state’s budget, my bill largely limits these groups from suing the state of Minnesota.

At the recent Congressional hearing on H.R. 5544, environmentalists were opposed to an equal, acre-for-acre exchange, stating how they would have preferred a deal they tried to work out behind closed doors with the USFS that would have required the federal government to make a one-time buyout of Minnesota school trust lands. Fortunately for Minnesota students, their efforts never came to fruition. Minnesota schools need and deserve a multi-generational revenue stream from mining, timber sales and leasing from these newly exchanged school lands.

Rep. Dittrich said, “(A) land sale is not feasible, politically or fiscally. The land acquired with a land swap, and not through a sale, provides jobs for a struggling economy in northern Minnesota.”

Unfortunately, this fact is an inconvenient truth environmental special interests like the Friends of the Boundary Waters and its allies refuse to accept.

Just last week, the Star Tribune editorial board insinuated I am pushing the land exchange to receive future campaign contributions from “large international mining companies.” Never mind I will be self-term limited out of office before any mining would begin; this kind of casual, baseless accusation of criminal wrongdoing demonstrates what is wrong with our politics today.

Fortunately for Minnesota students, people looking for a job and a region in search of economic prosperity, ideologically opposed special interests did not outshine our most pressing obligations. Entrusted by the sovereign people of Minnesota, our state legislators and the governor got this land exchange done.

Democrats and Republicans at the state level have done the difficult work in rolling back roadblocks and creating a legal blueprint for future federal action.

I am confident the land exchange will get done at the federal level because it benefits so many people. H.R. 5544 will allow increased revenue to flow into school coffers for decades, if not in perpetuity. The land exchange will create good-paying jobs and will be an economic boon for our state and region.

Even the Star Tribune editorial board had to admit last week that H.R. 5544 “would surely benefit” our local economy.

Finally, I am confident this will get done because obstacles to progress have a hard time lasting forever. It is our legal obligation to resolve this matter, and it is our duty to future generations of Minnesotans.

While much work remains, we never have been closer to resolving this 30-year problem. For the rest of this year, I am going to do my best to have H.R. 5544 clear the House of Representatives and pass the baton to our senators, who hopefully will have the opportunity to bring this win for our state across the finish line.