An environmental group has filed a lawsuit against Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Attorney General Sean Reyes over the state’s challenge of federal control over unappropriated public lands within the state.

The state’s lawsuit, filed in August, involves about 18.5 million acres administered by the Bureau of Land Management.

Filed in Utah’s Third District Court, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance lawsuit alleges Cox and Reyes violated the Utah Constitution’s provision that the people of the state “forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands” lying within its boundaries.

That language was a condition of statehood and is found in Utah’s Constitution and the Utah Enabling Act, which led to Utah’s entry into the Union, according to the lawsuit.

“Utah’s bill of complaint seeks to renege on the express commitments made in the Utah Enabling Act and Utah Constitution by asking the Supreme Court to issue an order directing that the United States begin to dispose of public lands in Utah, as well as an order that it is unconstitutional for the United States to even retain such lands in the state,” the lawsuit states.

Implications

If successful, Utah’s lawsuit would dismantle a core part of Utah’s identity: public lands, according to the wilderness proponents. It would also implicate more than 200 million acres of public lands across the West.

“Not only is Utah’s lawsuit illegal, it asks the U.S. Supreme Court to order the United States to begin the sell-off or ‘disposal’ of millions of acres of public lands, including into private ownership. These are places Utahns and Americans hike, hunt, sightsee and recreate. Utah’s lawsuit would take all of that away,” Steve Bloch, the Alliance’s legal director, said in a press release.

The plaintiff also points to what it calls a state-funded propaganda campaign — Stand for our Land — to confuse the public.

In direct violation of Utah’s constitutional mandate, “defendants are spending millions of dollars of state monies and dedicating enormous resources to pursuing litigation in an attempt to assert right and title to unappropriated public lands lying within Utah’s boundaries,” the lawsuit states.

Injunction

The Alliance is seeking declaratory and injunctive relief that the lawsuit is illegal and beyond the authority of Cox and Reyes.

They are asking for an injunction prohibiting the governor and attorney general from implementing funding or otherwise pursuing their challenge of federal control over public land in the state.

The lawsuit states Congress oversaw the disposal of millions of acres of federal lands across the U.S., including Utah, from 1896 to 1976.

In addition, the U.S. attempted to dispose of more land in Utah and other western states but was rebuffed because of concerns over expenses that would be born by the sates to administer those lands as well as loss of federal funding for reclamation and highways among other projects.

It also points out the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act marked the end of widespread disposal of public lands and replaced it with a policy that public lands be retained in federal ownership unless disposal would serve the national interest.

The U.S. Department of Justice is asking the court to deny Utah’s challenge, saying it lacks merit and faces significant jurisdictional and procedural barriers.