Republican lawmakers in the West say they want states to have more control over their own lands, instead of officials from Washington, D.C., especially as state residents are denied the benefits they would get if it were state-owned.
Senator Mike Lee along with Senator Mitt Romney and Utah Representatives John Curtis, Celeste Maloy, Blake Moore, Burgess Owens and Wyoming Representative Harriet Hageman filed a friend of the court brief supporting Utah’s case in the U.S. Supreme Court as state hopes to take control of 18.5 million hectares of unused land.
The public lands that Utah wants to return to state control don’t include national parks, national monuments and national forests — much of it consists of desert landscapes or agricultural lands, not necessarily the photo-worthy landscapes some people think of when they hear the term. public lands.
The federal government controls 70% of the state’s land, and the rules on how that land can be used could change depending on who is in charge of the White House. In the letter, lawmakers said they filed it not only because it is a constitutional issue, but because they wanted to begin undoing the harm Utah and the West have experienced from the federal government’s control of their lands.
Lee said in a statement to the Deseret News that the federal government’s vast control of Utah land has “increasingly limited what Utahns can do in their backyard.”
“This must change, and I am proud to stand alongside Utah families – along with our entire congressional delegation – in urging the Supreme Court to allow this case to proceed,” Lee continued.
In Romney’s statement to the Deseret News, he noted that Utah “has one of the highest percentages of federal government ownership in the nation.”
“Whether or not the federal government can continue indefinitely to control more than 18 million acres of this land – which is currently unappropriated – must be considered,” Romney said. “Public lands are best managed by those closest to them.”
Frustrated with the lack of local control over the land, state lawmakers in Utah decided to go straight to the Supreme Court to address some of the harm they are causing to the state’s residents. Federal agencies can influence the livelihoods of Utahns by saying how much access farmers have to land for grazing, what roads Utahns can use or where campers can pitch their tents.
The state hired former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement and veteran Supreme Court attorney Erin Murphy to argue the case. The lawsuit alleges that the federal government makes money from Utah’s lands through commercial filming and grazing, while the state loses out on that revenue.
But more than that, Utah said the federal government’s control of the land was unconstitutional — and that the feds wouldn’t budge when asked to return improper land to the state. Unappropriated land is land owned by the Bureau of Land Management that has not been reserved for a specific purpose.
Who will take control of the country?
There are a number of key questions that the Supreme Court wants to rule on. Should states or the federal government have sovereignty or control over these lands? And is it fair that people living in the state have to deal with changing rules about how the land is used?
In their letter, Lee, Romney and the representatives argued that the Supreme Court should give Utah control over unsuitable land. They noted that the Utah lawsuit came after state leaders repeatedly asked the federal government to give up these lands — only to be repeatedly ignored.
It is a uniquely Western phenomenon that more than half of the country is in a state controlled by the federal government. According to Ballotpedia, most states east of the Mississippi have more than 10% of their land owned by the federal government, but in the West that number is much higher. Lawmakers say this puts the state on unequal footing with other states in the US
Nearly half of the land owned by the federal government in Utah is used for profit or simply held, the group of politicians said in the letter. It is not used under any specific constitutional power. But because Utah doesn’t own the land, the state can’t tax or regulate it.
This means the federal government is denying Utah basic powers that other states have over their lands, the brief said. This is unique to Utah and nine other western states that also have a lot of land owned by the federal government.
“By assigning control of one-third of Utah’s land to the BLM (Bureau of Land Management), the United States completely denies Utah’s ownership of that land,” the letter said. This reduces equality with other states and “imposes second-class status” on Utah and other Western states.
Utah and Western states cannot manage land within their own borders in a manner that would lead to the flourishing of its citizens, the brief said.
The order raises another issue: the president’s control over state lands. To the frustration of local citizens, presidents have expanded the size of national monuments without input from local residents. Former President Bill Clinton designated Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument without stepping foot on Utah soil. The area would be used for mining and the people in the area experienced economic problems due to its monument status.
Presidents can step in and declare land monuments or not because of the Antiquities Act. It is a law that has allowed presidents to expand monuments and monuments indefinitely.
“The president should have no more control over Utah land than the people of Utah or their elected representatives,” the commissioner said. The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Utah lawsuit could resolve some existing legal issues regarding the Antiquities Act.
The brief addresses some of the issues local residents have faced due to federal control of land.
In Panguitch, a charming town that is the seat of Garfield County, local sawmill workers faced unemployment when the amount of wood the mill was allowed to take from national forests was reduced. Even when one of the major industries that made the city thrive closed in 1996, state and federal lawmakers could do nothing about it.
SUWA response to the Utah lawsuit
But opponents of the state’s lawsuit see it as undermining conservation efforts. Shortly after Utah filed its suit, team members from the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance stopped by the Deseret News for an official editorial board meeting.
At the meeting, Steve Bloch, the group’s legal director, said the state was encouraged by the 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court and that’s why they weren’t going to federal district court.
Bloch laid out a map of federally owned lands in Utah (with an emphasis on unappropriated lands) and said the term is used for PR to make people think the land isn’t special. He doesn’t think Utah can even afford to take over the country.
“This is just a non-serious approach,” Bloch said. “This is anti-federal rhetoric.” He added that he thought it “threw red meat on a portion of the Utah electorate that is animated by this.”
SUWA may see it as anti-federal rhetoric, but Utah politicians say this lawsuit has been a long time coming after years of trying to work with the federal government.
“We’ve been asking for this for 50 years,” Utah Governor Spencer Cox said in announcing the lawsuit. “And not only are they completely unwilling to negotiate or help about this, it’s the exact opposite. It’s not just ‘no’, it’s ‘not at all, and we’re going to close more roads and make it harder.’
