{"id":10200,"date":"2024-11-30T22:57:50","date_gmt":"2024-12-01T05:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/?p=10200"},"modified":"2025-04-26T16:31:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T22:31:08","slug":"public-lands-feds-respond-to-utahs-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/?p=10200","title":{"rendered":"Public Lands – Feds respond to Utah’s lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>The federal government\u2019s response to Utah\u2019s lawsuit seeking to take over millions of acres of public land says the state\u2019s legal challenge is \u201cwithout merit.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a brief filed last Thursday, attorneys with the U.S. Department of Justice asked the U.S. Supreme Court to deny Utah\u2019s motion, writing that the state\u2019s argument doesn\u2019t hold water. Plus, the state fails to meet the criteria that would allow a petition directly to the nation\u2019s high court rather than going through lower courts first, the filing claims.<\/p>\n

Filed in August, Utah\u2019s lawsuit questions whether the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, can indefinitely hold onto land without giving it a designation. The BLM controls about 18.5 million acres of what the state calls \u201cunappropriated land\u201d in Utah \u2014 the land is still leased for grazing, recreation and mineral extraction, but lacks a formal designation.<\/p>\n

National parks, national monuments, national forests, Indian reservations or wilderness areas have a designation, and therefore are not considered \u201cunappropriated.\u201d But about 34% of the entire state meets the state\u2019s definition of \u201cunappropriated,\u201d much of it found in remote western Utah.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit claims the federal government lacks the constitutional power to hold that land \u201cin perpetuity \u2026 over the State\u2019s objection.\u201d The Supreme Court should declare the practice of holding unappropriated land unconstitutional, Utah argues, and issue an injunction that would start the process of a massive, 18.5 million acre land transfer.<\/p>\n

But the federal government says that argument lacks merit and \u201cfaces significant jurisdictional and procedural barriers.\u201d\u00a0Utah argues the federal government can only hold onto land if it has a designated purpose; the federal government asks \u201cwhy a formal reservation would make a legal difference\u201d under the constitution.\u00a0Utah argues the federal government can\u2019t retain land over its \u201cexpress objection\u201d; the federal government says that runs afoul of the constitution\u2019s supremacy clause, which states federal law takes precedence over state law.<\/p>\n

Utah argues Congress has a \u201cduty to dispose of unappropriated public lands\u201d; the federal government says that while Congress has the power to dispose of land, it does not have a duty to do so.\u00a0And, Utah raises several policy objections, including its inability to collect revenue on federal land; the federal government says that argument is better suited for Congress, not the country\u2019s high court.<\/p>\n

The brief also takes issue with Utah invoking original jurisdiction, which allows states to petition directly to the Supreme Court rather than starting in a lower court and then going through the appeals process. To invoke original jurisdiction, the issue needs to be between a state and the federal government.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the case does not involve a dispute over state boundaries, the brief reads, or Utah\u2019s ability to enforce criminal and civil laws on the land in question.<\/p>\n

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The federal government\u2019s response to Utah\u2019s lawsuit seeking to take over millions of acres of public land says the state\u2019s legal challenge is \u201cwithout merit.\u201d In a brief filed last Thursday, attorneys with the U.S. Department of Justice asked the U.S. Supreme Court to deny Utah\u2019s motion, writing that the state\u2019s argument doesn\u2019t hold water. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-public-lands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10203,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10200\/revisions\/10203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbbch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}