The federal government owns nearly half the land in the West. Utah is trying to change that. The state filed a long-shot petition to the U.S. Supreme Court in August, arguing that the government isn’t allowed to hold onto all of that land forever.
It’s taking aim at what it calls “unappropriated land” – 18.5 million acres in the state that are managed by the Bureau of Land Management and are not designated as wilderness, parks or monuments.
Utah argues that the Constitution allows the federal government to “dispose” of public land, but never says it can retain ownership indefinitely.
In a response filed before the Supreme Court in November, the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice said Utah’s claim “plainly lacks merit.”
It argued that the Constitution gives Congress the power to control federal public lands, and it said courts have long affirmed this power. But first, it laid out the history of Western statehood and shared that Utah gave up the rights to the federal lands within its boundaries when it joined the union in 1896 – an agreement cemented in the state constitution.
“[The lawsuit] is so in conflict with all of that history which has gone into establishing the West as we know it today,” said Chris Winter, an attorney who directs the University of Colorado Law School’s environmental law center. “The federal government's response really calls that out, in quite stark contrast to what Utah's argued.”
The brief notes that Utah isn’t questioning whether the U.S. can hold territories like Puerto Rico and Guam or other property like “Fort Knox, the oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or the art in the Smithsonian.” But the Constitution, the DOJ said, treats the government’s right to retain public land no different.
The government also argued the petition doesn’t qualify for a special look from the justices before the arguments have been heard by lower courts.
The Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation also joined in opposing Utah. On the other side, officials from other states including Idaho, Wyoming, New Mexico and Arizona, filed briefs backing Utah. The Supreme Court will decide whether to hear the case by the end of this term, which ends October 2025.
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.
