A Utah lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to give it half of the federal land in the state could have unprecedented consequences for management of public land across the West.
If Utah is successful in its claim that the U.S. Constitution does not authorize the federal government to indefinitely hold the Bureau of Land Management rangelands identified in the lawsuit, that standard could be applied to an estimated 144 million acres across the West, and an additional 66 million acres in Alaska, according to U.S. Geological Survey maps and data compiled by the Wilderness Society.
Legal experts were skeptical of the state’s long-shot bid — filed directly with the nation’s highest court this week and challenging a section of the 1976 law that directed BLM to manage lands for multiple-use and sustained yield. But conservationists emphasized the wide-reaching ambitions of the complaint, which could gut BLM, seizing territory currently used for recreation, oil and gas leasing, and ranching, and potentially transform the West.
Michael Carroll, BLM campaign director for the Wilderness Society, said the court system has “rejected legal and legislative efforts to seize public lands for decades,” and that he expects the “latest attempt by the state of Utah will have a similar result.”
