Half of all federal land in Utah is being illegally held by the federal government, which should dispose of it, the state argued in a Supreme Court original jurisdiction complaint filed Tuesday.
If the court takes the case and Utah wins, the legal action has the potential to completely upend the US’s system of public lands, jeopardizing the 245 million acres of land under the control of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management.
Each of the 11 Western states and Alaska have vast amounts of federal land within their borders. Nevada has the most, with 80% of its land under federal ownership. Utah, which is 69% federally-owned, is the only state to ask the Supreme Court to force that land out of federal hands.
“The BLM has increasingly failed to keep these lands accessible and appears to be pursuing a course of active closure and restriction,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) said in a statement.
Utah, which in 2012 passed a state law demanding the federal government give its BLM land to the state, claims that 18.5 million acres of “unappropriated” federal land is being illegally held by the US, and it must be disposed of. The federal government ignored the law.
Perpetual federal retention of unappropriated public lands in Utah is unconstitutional and is depriving the state of collecting taxes on that land, the ability to exercise eminent domain there, the right to develop it, and exercise policing powers, the state claims in its complaint.
“Nothing in the Constitution authorizes the United States to hold vast unreserved swathes of Utah’s territory in perpetuity, over Utah’s express objection, without even so much as a pretense of using those lands in the service of any enumerated power,” the state claims.
About 37.4 million acres of land in Utah is federally-owned, and of that, roughly half is “unappropriated,” or land the US is “simply holding, without reserving it for any designated purpose or is using it to execute any of its enumerated powers,” Utah said in its filing.
Utah said it’s challenging only unappropriated BLM land, not any federal land reserved by Congress or the president as national parks, conservation areas, military reservations, or for other uses.
The Interior Department declined to comment Tuesday.
Environmental groups on Tuesday immediately criticized Utah’s complaint.
Utah “filed an outrageous lawsuit” challenging the federal government’s centuries-old authority to own and manage its own lands, the Wilderness Society said in a statement.
“While Utahns and the public are out enjoying public lands this summer, their state’s officials have been busy filing extreme lawsuits to undermine and ultimately seize control of federal public lands,” said Alison Flint, legal director for the Wilderness Society.
The filing makes Utah the “most anti-public lands state in the country,” said Steve Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
“Utahns and visitors travel to our state to experience stunning redrock canyons, spires, and mesas; public lands that are owned by all Americans and managed on their behalf by the federal government and its expert agencies,” Bloch said in a statement. “All of that is at risk with Utah’s saber rattling.”
Utah is represented by Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes and Clement & Murphy PLLC.
The case is Utah v. USA, U.S., Not Yet Docketed, 8/20/24
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