The Department of the Interior said today it strongly supports a plan now before Congress to increase shared-revenue payments to counties where National Wildlife Refuges are located.
The Department said proposed legislation, if modified, could remove one of the serious stumbling blocks for waterfowl habitat preservation by setting up a new formula for distributing revenue payments on a more equitable basis. The revenues come from sales of hay, grass, timber and other products of the refuges.
The Federal Government’s wetlands development program received impetus in 1961 by Congressional authorization of $105 million for seven-year accelerated plan, the money to be repaid to the Treasury from future duck stamp sales. The program has been stymied for the past two years by State and local opposition to Federal land purchases which take property off local tax rolls.
Under the Administration’s revenue-sharing proposal, the Department of the Interior estimates that the total payments to the counties would be nearly equal to or exceed what the counties would have received if the lands were in private ownership A few counties would receive less than they no get, but most counties would receive more.
Details of the Department’s proposal were given in a letter from John A. Carver, Jr., Assistant Secretary of the Interior, to Chairman Herbert C. Bonner of the House of Representatives Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries.
Mr. Carver noted that the 1961 wetlands Act requires that the purchase of lands for waterfowl habitat from the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund must first be approved by the respective governors or appropriate State agency. Considerable acreage of key waterfowl habitat is involved in the States of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota since these states contain the major duck nesting grounds within the united States outside Alaska.
Under a 1935 law, 25 percent of the net receipts from wildlife refuge lands (timber, minerals, oil. Grass ad so forth) is paid each year to the counties where the refutes re locate. The money benefits public schools and roads.
The 1935 formula has resulted in inequitable distribution of receipts, Mr. Carver said, because some refuge lands have little or no revenue-producing activities and other counties receive a great deal more revenue than if the lands were in private ownership. The new formula would remedy the situation by putting wall revenues into a single und and distributing them under a formula tied to local real estate values.
Assistant Secretary Carver said that in fiscal year 1961 net receipts from 120 National Wildlife Refuges, game ranges, and waterfowl production areas were about $2 million. Of this, $496,840 was returned to the 188 countries where these areas are located. The largest payment to any county was some $277,000 and the smallest, $1.
Under the new formula, 203 counties would have received about $620,000 nearly $123,000 more than the actual payment in 1961. A similar calculation for 1962 showed that 218 counties and the State of Alaska would have received about $658,000 or $75,000 more than was actually paid in 1962. This would have included 33 more counties than the 185 receiving payments last year.
“Every county, wherein lands have been acquired as part of the National Wildlife Refuge System, would share more equitably under our proposal in the total net receipts from the System whether the refuge lands are revenue-producing or not, “Assistant Secretary Carver added.
The new formula would continue to require use of the fund for the benefit of public schools and roads.
Assistant Secretary Carver said several provision in pending bills do not relate to the revenue-sharing principle. Accordingly, the Department urges that such sections be excluded.
