Utah vs. the federal government over public lands — state lawmakers join fight

The state Legislature’s Management Committee voted Tuesday to file a friend of the court brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the Utah Attorney General’s lawsuit filed in August over 18.5 million acres of “unappropriated” public lands under federal ownership.
A tie vote of 4-4 was broken by leadership, as per rules, when House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, and Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, voted once again in favor of supporting the unique lawsuit.
Both Schultz and Adams said it is well past time that Utah do something about the vast amount of land controlled by the federal government that they say is often left in disarray and neglected.
“I’ve had the opportunity to watch Utah’s public lands over the last almost 40 or almost 50 years,” Schultz said. “And what is happening to our public lands kills me. As a conservationist at heart, who spends a lot of his own money, a lot of my own money, on improving land and making it better — to see the mismanagement that’s happening on our Forest Service lands, on our BLM lands, on all of the federally managed lands, is sickening, and we should all be ashamed of it. It’s going backwards.”
The amicus curiae, or friend of the court brief, comes in response to a lawsuit announced last month in a press conference by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, joined by Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes.
The country’s highest court has yet to take up the case. But if it were to rule in Utah’s favor, control of a significant portion of public lands would shift to state capitals like Phoenix, Boise and Salt Lake City, instead of the nation’s Capitol 2,000 miles away.
It is those people, Schultz added, in charge of those lands in Utah — “bureaucrats” far removed from the state — who are out of touch with what is going on with the landscapes.
“It is not right and it is not fair,” he asserted.
Adams said the lawsuit leaves untouched places already under active management by federal agencies such as national parks, wilderness areas, national forests, monuments, tribal lands or military properties — land he describes as appropriated and serving a designated use. That amounts to 18.8 million acres.
But 18.5 million acres of federal land is unencumbered for a special purpose, land that the state fears will soon change with public land restrictions that no longer make the land public multiuse and for purposes of sustained yield — something etched in stone under the Federal Lands Policy Management Act passed in 1976.
The land ownership by the federal government puts Utah at a distinct disadvantage, Adams said.
“In comparison the federal government owns less than 1% of the ground in Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island. Our Founding Fathers took care of those three states,” Adams said. “If you move on, less than 3% of the land is federally owned in Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and yet they own 70% of the land here in Utah.”
Some GOP lawmakers have said the federal government is whittling away access to land they control, via restrictions that include 500 miles of roads closed and more to come. Grazing allotments are at risk as well, due to a new position by the Bureau of Land Management that nongovernment organizations are on an equal footing when it comes to being granted leases — but for conservation purposes lawmakers say have the potential to decimate public access.
“It takes a hands off, don’t touch, stay out approach, and they’re going to continue to close down more roads. This is access to some of those of us that love to get out and recreate, camp and climb or whatever it is,” Schultz said. “Hiking in our public land, they’re no longer going to have access to some of their favorite areas unless they’re willing to walk in 15 to 20 miles to get … to this area or to the area where they historically had access — and that is not fair to people with disabilities and that is not fair to people who can’t hike that far in.”
Several Democratic members of the Legislative Management Committee made clear their objection to Utah’s involvement, citing the costs that will run into the millions and the small chance of any tangible victory.
“I think it’ll be taxpayer money being lost in another fruitless litigation. But we will lose outdoor recreation opportunities. We will lose habitat for wildlife, and this will provide us with an opportunity to privatize some of the 70% of the land we all recreate on,” said Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights.
Rep. Jen Dailey-Provost, D-Salt Lake City, also wanted her name put on record as opposing the legal action.
But if the state is successful, it would take over leasing on those federal lands.
Utah has hired former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement and leading Supreme Court advocate Erin Murphy to argue the case, which could add up to $14 million in costs.