Image: Pedro Szekely/Flickr
In a win for anybody who hunts, fishes, or recreates on public land in the West, the Supreme Court on Monday turned down a suit from the state of Utah that looked for to provide Utah control over 18.5 million acres of federal land within its borders.
Utah has a long history of privatizing public land and focusing on property advancement at the cost of rank-and-file residents. Late in 2015, we reported on this suit. Utah desired control of all 18.5 million acres of “unappropriated land,” or land administered by the Bureau of Land Management that presently has actually no designated function. The suit was not looking for control of national parks, parks, monoliths, or wilderness locations.
The core of the argument was this: “Absolutely nothing in the Constitution licenses the United States to hold large unreserved swathes of Utah’s area in eternity, over Utah’s reveal objection, without however much as a pretense of utilizing those lands in the service of any enumerated power.”
In spite of a conservative bulk on the United States Supreme Court, the justices turned down the suit, which was submitted straight with the greatest court in the land, rather of in lower courts initially, as is the normal procedure.
The Supreme Court had no main declaration on the case, however the Lawyer General did say that “Utah’s match was unforeseen, noting it was taking legal action against 176 years after the United States initially obtained the lands at problem and 48 years after Congress passed the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.”
You can learn more about the rejection of the suit here.
