A House panel unanimously advanced a bill aimed at blocking certain foreign entities from acquiring Utah land in the name of national security.
One of two bills under consideration by Utah lawmakers this session that would restrict foreign control of land, HB186 targets only entities identified in the National Defense Authorization Act as a foreign “military company” or an affiliate, according to sponsor Rep. Candice Pierucci, R-Riverton.
“If they these entities currently own land, they would have five years to sell it or get rid of it,” she told the House Government Operations Committee Friday. “But if they don’t, it would return back to the state.”
Pierucci referenced a controversy in North Dakota, where a Chinese company purchased land near a military installation.
“The Air Force says it poses a significant threat and is raising the alarm bells on it,” she said. “We’re seeing this across the country where these different restricted entities are making major strategic land purchases in different states next to defense installations.”
Some committee members were concerned about restricting Utahns’ ability to sell their land.
“It’s very un-American to threaten to take away their land, even if they’re owned by a Chinese corporation,” said Rep. Cory Maloy, R-Lehi, “but I see the purpose of this and I agree with it.”
But Pierucci assured the bill would not affect Chinese nationals’ ability to acquire land unless they were working for a company that was acting on behalf of the Chinese government.
“To be put on this list, to be a restricted foreign entity, in this specific case, it would be China, the actual government of China, or one of their Chinese military companies,” she said. “They use shell organizations as proxies for military purposes.”
Pierucci deliberately avoided using a “blanket approach” barring any foreign entity from acquiring land.
“That would be quite a prohibition on private property ownership,” she said. “Because this is targeting it to individual entities who have been identified as having nefarious objectives, it’s a way of protecting our state.”
Another bill would put up much higher hurdles to foreign ownership of Utah land, potentially raising concerns about the measure’s impact on private property rights in a state where those rights are sacrosanct. HB218 would prohibit any foreign government, or entities that are “owned, controlled, operated, or maintained by a foreign government,” from acquiring or leasing an interest in land in Utah.
“Do we really want any foreign country coming in and buying our agricultural land, our forests or our mineral rights?” sponsor Rep. Kay Christofferson, R-Lehi, told the AP. “If it would interfere with our sovereignty — especially in an emergency situation or during a threat to national security — I think that we’d lose our ability as a state to be independent and self-sufficient.”
According to a recent Wall Street Journal article that highlights the North Dakota case, Utah is No. 4 among states where Chinese entities own agricultural land with about 30,000 acres under Chinese control, out of 338,000 acres nationwide. Several thousand of these acres surround the town of Jensen where Green Pasture International, a firm with Chinese owners based in Pasadena, Calif., grows alfalfa to supply dairies in China.
The firm’s principal Simon Shao did not respond to a message left as his office
While Pierucci’s bill is heading to a vote on the House floor, Christofferson’s bill remains stuck in the House Rules Committee without a hearing date.
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