In landmark decision, Murkowski wins approval for 360,000-acre land grant to University of Alaska

In 1993, my twin brother researched and wrote a report for the University of Alaska on the last traditional land-grant college in the United States, a publication he called “A Land-Grant College Without the Land: A History of the University of Alaska’s Federal Land Grant.”

After a landmark decision this week by the federal government, it will no longer be the land-grant college without the land.

The omnibus federal budget bill approved by Congress includes a bill by Sen. Lisa Murkowski to transfer 360,000 acres to the university. Sen. Dan Sullivan, who said he didn’t like the process in Congress, voted against the omnibus bill. Rep. Mary Peltola voted for it.

Murkowski calls the land-grant portion of the bill the University of Alaska Fiscal Foundation Act, a measure that in time will produce new revenues from land sales and development for the university. To do this, the university will have to expand its land management functions and do a lot more planning work. None of this will be simple, if it is to be done right.

Turning land into a steady stream of cash is easier said than done, though Alaska politicians usually act as if the whole thing is easy.

This issue has a long history that includes political and legal battles that we can expect to resurface with a vengeance.

Part of the difficulty is because the real estate in question is not generally in an urban area where there is a high price per square foot. Part of it is that resource development is complicated by competing interests. Part of the difficulty is that access is expensive. And part of it is because for every action on the land development front there will be an equal and opposite reaction.

The university land will come out of Alaska’s statehood land entitlement of more than 100 million acres, which is a total that exceeds the size of California.

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