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Despite Supreme Court denial, Utah leaders vow to continue public lands fight

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox speaks in the Gold Room at the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City, Aug. 20, 2024. State leaders wanted the Supreme Court to take up their bid to control more than 18.5 million acres of Bureau of Land Management land, which covers about 34% of Utah.
Saige Miller
/
KUER
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox speaks in the Gold Room at the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City, Aug. 20, 2024. State leaders wanted the Supreme Court to take up their bid to control more than 18.5 million acres of Bureau of Land Management land, which covers about 34% of Utah.

Utah’s move to go straight to the U.S. Supreme Court to wrest control of over 18.5 million acres of “unincorporated” public land currently managed by the Bureau of Land Management has hit a snag. In orders issued Jan. 13, justices refused to take up the case. The court did not explain their reasoning.

State leaders had expressed early hope the court’s 6-3 conservative majority would be more favorable to states’ rights issues brought before it.

Instead, Gov. Spencer Cox, Speaker of the House Mike Schultz, Senate President Stuart Adams and new Attorney General Derek Brown were left “disappointed in the Supreme Court’s decision not to take up this case,” they said in a joint statement.

The court’s order only denied the bid to file a complaint and did not comment on the merits of the state’s arguments. Leadership also noted that it did not prohibit the state from filing its case in a lower district court.

“Utah remains able and willing to challenge any BLM land management decisions that harm Utah,” they said. “We are also heartened to know the incoming administration shares our commitments to the principle of ‘multiple use’ for these federal lands and is committed to working with us to improve land management. We will continue to fight to keep public lands in public hands because it is our stewardship, heritage and home.”

The state has long taken issue with what it has seen as heavy-handed federal regulations pertaining to public land use and access. For example, the BLM decided to restrict 317 miles of land in Moab to off-road vehicles in 2023, which the agency said was to protect wildlife habitat. Utah petitioned to stop that decision later that year.

In an interview with KUER in August 2024 when the lawsuit was first announced, Cox said that in the event the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, the state would “probably go back and start at the federal district court level.”

Monday’s decision was celebrated by environmental groups, who are concerned over future sales of public lands to private parties. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance went as far as to sue the state and highlighted wording in the state constitution and the Utah Enabling Act where Utah eschewed claim on lands currently owned by the federal government.

To Alliance Legal Director Steve Bloch it was an attempted “land grab” by state politicians.

“For more than 100 years, the Supreme Court has affirmed the power of the federal government to hold and manage public lands on behalf of all Americans,” he said in a statement. “If successful, Utah’s lawsuit would result in the sale of millions of acres of public lands in redrock country to the highest bidder, an end to America’s system of federal public lands, and the dismantling of the American West as we know it.”

The Center for Biological Diversity praised the Supreme Court’s denial as one that sided with legal precedent.

“Sadly, I doubt this will be the last attempt to seize and privatize America’s public lands,” said Southwest Director Taylor McKinnon in a statement. “But the court’s decision shows that we can win the battle to defend these precious wild places.”

Federally controlled land makes up roughly 70% of Utah. State leaders have long maintained they would be better stewards than the federal government. Since the lawsuit was announced last summer, the state has managed a campaign to spread its argument, both in Utah and nationally.

The BLM-administered lands targeted by the lawsuit make up around 18.5 million acres, or 34% of the state. The BLM controls nearly 22.8 million acres overall, concentrated in the west and southeastern sides of Utah. The land is managed for multiple uses such as energy development, grazing, mining, conservation and recreation.

Saige is a politics reporter and co-host of KUER's State Street politics podcast
Sean is KUER’s politics reporter.
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