John Hansen: “H.R. 3928 would direct the Secretary of the Interior to assist the University of Utah by making a grant to the…”

“H.R. 3928 would direct the Secretary of the Interior to assist the University of Utah by making a grant to the University of Utah Museum of Natural History in Salt Lake City, Utah, to help pay for the Federal share of the costs of construction of a new natural history museum. The Federal share, however, would not exceed 25 percent of the total cost. While the museum holds large collections of objects and specimens recovered from State and private lands, the vast majority of the collection has come from public lands in Utah and the surrounding States in the Intermountain West. In fact, more than 75 percent of the museum's collection contains artifacts from lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The building which currently houses archeological, paleontological, zoological, geological, and botanical artifacts poses serious environmental threats to the collection, lacks good public access, and contains very small and outdated exhibits.”