A lawsuit Utah filed with the U.S. Supreme Court this summer is described as the boldest move yet to wrest control of public lands from the federal government. Now more states, counties and lawmakers are now joining the fight.
Utah is challenging whether the federal government can forever hold onto 18.5 million acres of what it calls “unappropriated” public lands within its boundaries — more than a third of the state. These lands are managed by the Bureau of Land Management, and are not part of national parks, forests or monuments. Utah wants these lands under state control.
The state filed the legal challenge in August. U.S. Senators Mike Lee and Mitt Romney, the states of Wyoming, Idaho and Alaska, the Arizona legislature, and some counties in New Mexico, are among groups that filed friend of the court briefs this week supporting Utah.
“It’s not just a Utah issue. It’s a Wyoming issue, it’s a Western states issue, it’s a Nevada issue, it’s a Colorado issue,” said Ivan London, an attorney with the conservative Mountain States Legal Foundation, whose clients — two dozen Wyoming legislators — filed a friend of the court brief this week.
The goal, London said, is for the high court to consider the questions in the case.
“About whether the federal government, constitutionally, can regulate so much Western land,” he said, “or whether the federal government has to let states take the lead there.”
Environmental groups and public lands advocates, on the other hand, say history and century-old legal precedent undercut Utah’s “Hail Mary” petition.
“They’ve been defeated time and again through the legislative process,” said Michael Carroll with The Wilderness Society, “and now they’re trying this backhanded way of getting the result they want by going directly to the court.”
If the Supreme Court hears the case, it could call into question the ownership of public lands across the West. Though Utah said it would keep the targeted lands public, environmental groups fear eventual sales to private development. The federal government has until mid-November to respond to the lawsuit.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
