REGIONAL— A prime opportunity to resolve a longstanding concern over federal funding to three Arrowhead counties missed a key deadline in the U.S. House when time ran out on the 118th Congress on Jan. 3.
The U.S. Senate had approved a measure authored by U.S. Sen. Tina Smith and co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, that would have guaranteed future payments to St. Louis, Lake, and Cook counties under the 1948 Thye-Blatnik Act. Those payments, which were based on a percentage of the appraised value of certain federal lands in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, had declined in the wake of a controversial 2018 reappraisal that amounted to a 49 percent reduction in the estimated value of the lands in question. That change would have sharply cut payments to the three affected counties, with Lake County facing the largest cut, of approximately $1.2 million.
While the U.S. Forest Service, under pressure from state and federal officials, conducted a new appraisal, the new number still came in well below an appraisal conducted in 2008. Based on the second 2018 appraisal, Lake County still lost $251,000, while Cook County lost over $200,000, equal to a little over three percent of the county’s levy. St. Louis County’s payment declined by about $160,000 a year.
Ever since, the three counties have put a potential solution to the problem among the top items on their federal to-do list.
That solution appeared to finally be at hand, with the passage of Smith’s measure in the Senate on Dec. 18, which set a floor for future payments based on the 2008 appraisal, which was the highest appraisal since passage of the Thye-Blatnick Act. “My bill provides financial certainty and security to these counties and a permanent fix to the problem,” said Sen. Smith in a press release issued the day of passage. “I look forward to seeing this bipartisan and urgently needed legislation quickly move through the House of Representatives and go to the President’s desk so it can be signed into law.”
But the measure never advanced in the House and the 118th Congress adjourned without the fix in place, leaving the three affected counties facing uncertainty over future funding levels.
The Timberjay submitted several questions to Rep. Pete Stauber’s office, but never heard back on the reasons behind the failure to advance the measure in the GOP-led House. Stauber has previously claimed that enactment of a permanent fix to the issue was a high priority. Prospects for passage of a similar measure in the 119th Congress, which will be controlled by Republicans, appears uncertain.
Sen. Smith spokesperson Lexi Byler said the senator has interacted with Stauber’s office for years to resolve the issue and “remains committed to working in a bipartisan way to pass this fix through the Senate and the House this year and deliver much-needed relief to northern Minnesota counties.”
Long-standing payments
Congress passed the Thye-Blatnik Act in 1948 as a way to compensate the three northeastern Minnesota counties for lost property tax value as the federal government began acquiring private lands in the region for the establishment of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Advocates of the wilderness have long pointed to the annual payments, in addition to the economic impact of the BWCAW, as among the regional benefits of the 1.1-million-acre wilderness. The payments amount to three-quarters of one percent of the appraised value of the lands in question located within each county. Since its passage, the measure has directed more than $150 million combined to the three counties. The annual allotment to the counties jumped sharply following the 2008 appraisal, which more than doubled the allocations the counties had received based on prior appraisals.
The 2018 appraisal would have resulted in a roughly 40-percent reduction in the payments, but the Forest Service conducted a second appraisal and ultimately agreed to reduce the county payments by only ten percent, although that’s still a significant amount for Lake and Cook counties, whose annual budgets and property values are dwarfed by St. Louis County.
Boundary Waters advocates said the passage of Smith’s bill in the Senate had been a golden opportunity to permanently address the funding uncertainty and they put the blame squarely on Stauber’s inaction. “By failing to prioritize this bill, Rep. Stauber is depriving northeastern Minnesota communities of the financial stability they desperately need, leaving them vulnerable to uncertainty and hardship,” said Ingrid Lyons, Executive Director of the Boundary Waters Action Fund and Save the Boundary Waters.