The state of Utah filed a federal lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court on Aug. 20 seeking to challenge the federal Bureau of Land Management’s control over millions of acres of unappropriated public lands.
These unappropriated lands, totaling about 18.5 million acres, have not been designated as national parks, national monuments, wilderness areas, national forests, or tribal lands or for military use, the complaint states.
The suit argued that the federal government’s continued possession of unappropriated public lands deprives Utah of basic and fundamental sovereign powers over more than a third of its territory.
It said the state cannot tax the federal government’s land holdings, use eminent domain to build critical infrastructure such as public roads and transportation, or exercise legislative authority over the land’s use.
According to the suit, state elected leaders have repeatedly urged the U.S. government to relinquish ownership of its unappropriated lands, but these efforts have been unsuccessful.
“Current federal land policy violates state sovereignty and offends the original and most fundamental notions of federalism.”
The federal government holds nearly 70 percent of the state’s total lands.
“It is not a secret that we live in the most beautiful state in the nation,” Cox stated. “But, when the federal government controls two-thirds of Utah, we are extremely limited in what we can do to actively manage and protect our natural resources.”
A bureau spokesperson told The Epoch Times that the agency will not comment on pending litigation.
Stephen Bloch, legal director of the nonprofit Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, has expressed strong opposition to the lawsuit, citing concerns over the risk of destruction to Utah’s landscape.
“All of that is at risk with Utah’s saber rattling and insistence that many of these remarkable landscapes are instead ’state lands’ that should be developed and ultimately destroyed by short-sighted state politicians.”
