Utah filed a landmark public lands lawsuit on Tuesday asking the U.S. Supreme Court to address whether the federal government can simply hold unappropriated lands within a State indefinitely. The state press release shares that the “unappropriated” land in question is approximately 18.5 million acres in Utah controlled by the BLM under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and does not include appropriated acres already designated for use like national parks and national forests. The federal government currently controls nearly 70 percent of the land in Utah while it owns less than one percent of the land in Connecticut, New York, and Rhode Island, and less than three percent of the land in Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. “The BLM has increasingly failed to keep these lands accessible and appears to be pursuing a course of active closure and restriction,” shares Governor Spencer Cox. “It is time for all Utahns to stand for our land.” The federal government has a formal policy of indefinitely retaining the unappropriated lands, regardless of whether it needs them for any governmental purpose or how doing so impacts the interests of the state and its citizens. “Current federal land policy violates state sovereignty and offends the original and most fundamental notions of federalism,” says Attorney General Sean D. Reyes. For more information on the public lands lawsuit, visit standforourland.utah.gov.
