WASHINGTON -The U.S. Senate last week passed the North Dakota Trust Lands Completion Act, bicameral legislation introduced by Sens. John Hoeven with Sen. Kevin Cramer and then-Congressman Kelly Armstrong to enable greater development of state-owned lands and minerals.

Specifically, the bill would authorize the State of North Dakota to relinquish state-owned lands and minerals contained within the tribal reservations to the U.S. Department of the Interior and, in exchange, receive federal land and minerals of equal value within North Dakota.

“We’ve advanced this legislation, in partnership with the State of North Dakota and tribal governments, to empower the lands and resources within our borders and on reservations to be better utilized for the benefit of the public,” said Hoeven, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “Allowing these equal-value exchanges is a win-win for the state and the tribes. North Dakota will be able to access minerals and surface acreage that would otherwise be stranded due to the patchwork of federal land in our state, while tribes will be able to reclaim the land and resources within reservation borders.”

“As any North Dakotan knows, fragmented mineral rights complicate energy and mineral development,” Cramer said. “Our North Dakota Trust Lands Completion Act is really an easy fix to federal and state land transfers to ensure we encourage more energy and resource development in the state.”

Currently, North Dakota holds more than 130,000 acres of minerals and over 31,000 surface acres within tribal reservations alone, which are largely unavailable for development. At the same time, existing federal laws do not adequately allow for the state and federal government to exchange land and minerals. This leaves surface and mineral rights within the tribal reservations fragmented, while limiting the state’s ability to generate revenue from the land and minerals it owns.

The North Dakota Trust Lands Completion Act would resolve this issue by allowing equal value transactions between North Dakota and the Interior Department to exchange land and mineral rights, thereby enabling North Dakota to access the lands and minerals promised upon statehood to fund education and other public purposes and providing tribes greater ownership over the lands within their reservation boundaries.