The state of Utah wants the nation’s highest court to order the federal government to give it control over the management of millions of acres of public lands within its boundaries.
Gov. Spencer Cox announced Tuesday the state has filed a legal complaint directly to the Supreme Court asking the justices to determine whether the Bureau of Land Management is legally authorized to indefinitely control 18.5 million acres in the state that have not been authorized for a specific use.
The 18.5 million acres of BLM lands at issue — more than one-third of the state’s territory — do not include lands in national monuments, national conservation areas or congressionally designated wilderness. But they do include lands with livestock grazing allotments, as well as oil and natural gas leases.
Cox said during the press conference that Utah “deserves priority when it comes to managing its land,” and that the U.S. Constitution did not grant the federal government the right to hold these lands indefinitely.
