Steve Bloch, legal director at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, speaks about a lawsuit against Utah’s “Stand for Our Land” challenge near the Scott M. Matheson Courthouse in Salt Lake City on Dec. 18, 2024 (Alixel Cabrera/Utah News Dispatch)
Environmental advocates filed a lawsuit against Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and outgoing Attorney General Sean Reyes over what they described as “unlawful land grab litigation” that Utah leaders hope will be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Utah’s lawsuit — which has been largely advertised across the state with a million-dollar bill for legal fees and marketing that has placed billboards, television and newspaper ads declaring “Stand for Our Land” — is an ambitious request to claim 18.5 million acres of “unappropriated” land controlled by the Bureau of Land Management. In its presentation, Cox said this may solve questions Utah and other Western states have had for decades about the domain of 34% of the state’s land.
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), a nonprofit that advocates for red rock wilderness in the country, however, argues that the state’s legal challenge violates the Utah Constitution.
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“We filed this lawsuit, alleging that they have violated the state’s compact that we would forever disclaim our interest in these federal public lands, and that the Governor and the Attorney General have acted outside and beyond their authority,” Steve Bloch, legal director at SUWA, said on Wednesday. “Utahns love their federal lands, and they’re not about to simply see them sold off, given up without a fight.”
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The Utah Constitution states “the people inhabiting this State do affirm and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries hereof, and to all lands lying within said limits owned or held by any Indian or Indian tribes.”
That provision, SUWA wrote in the suit, was a condition of statehood and enabled Utah to enter the Union. The advocates’ challenge filed on Wednesday morning seeks to enforce that original commitment, Bloch said.
“The federal public lands in Utah have never been ‘state lands,’ and were never owned by the State of Utah,” the lawsuit reads. “And contrary to the State’s assertions, it is not the United States that has contravened the Constitution by failing to grant them to the State, but the State that has contravened the Utah Constitution by seeking ownership of federal lands when it long ago disclaimed any such rights.”
Cox and Reyes’ offices didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
SUWA hopes that the court stops the Utah challenge and rules that Cox and Reyes acted outside of their authority by invoking what’s called original jurisdiction and filing the lawsuit directly to the Supreme Court, bypassing the regular legal process that includes decisions of different lower courts.
“Why is Utah trying to skip the line and skip it to the front?” Bloch said. “Well, they’ve been clear that they think it’s the makeup of the justices at the United States Supreme Court that makes this the right time for them to try this kind of a stunt. It’s certainly not that the law is on their side.”
In November, the U.S. Department of Justice also asked the Supreme Court to deny Utah’s motion, which it deemed “without merit.” But, the case also has the support of 12 states who argue that Utah’s inability to control those lands — public lands without a federal designation, like a national park, national monument or national forest — is problematic.
Besides that constitutional question, the environmentalists have a big concern over what would happen to the public lands, which include canyons and landscapes like Dirty Devil, Fisher Towers, Labyrinth Canyon, Deep Creek Mountains and Nine Mile Canyon.
If Utah gets its way with the lawsuit, SUWA said in a news release, public lands wouldn’t automatically be given to the state. A favorable ruling would trigger a “disposal” process.
“What we think will happen, should Utah be successful, is that the Supreme Court would order the federal government to start disposing of or selling off these lands to the highest bidder,” Bloch said. “And there are more than 200 million acres across the West that are at risk of suffering this fate.”
As of now, SUWA stands alone in the legal challenge. However, Bloch said, the lawsuit has the attention of other groups, including hunters, anglers and others who recreate on the public lands.
“All see Utah’s lawsuit as a very dire threat to the future of federal lands,” he said, “and the future of the American West.”
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