• Cheyenne says its support for Western states to take over federal land could extend to national parks, forests and wilderness areas.

By Angus M. Thuermer Jr., WyoFile.com

Wyoming is backing an effort by Utah to wrest ownership of U.S. Bureau of Land Management land from the federal government, arguing that states could “develop the land to attract prospective citizens.”

In an amicus brief filed Tuesday, Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska and the Arizona Legislature expressed support for Utah’s quest to take its case straight to the U.S. Supreme Court. Utah wants to own BLM land that’s currently the property of all Americans, saying among other things that the federal holdings deprive the Beehive State of an equal footing with other states.

Gov. Mark Gordon announced the Wyoming plea this week. Wyoming’s U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman lent her name to a separate amicus brief supporting Utah, teaming with U.S. Sens. Mitt Romney, Mike Lee and other Western members of Congress.

Twenty-six Wyoming legislators also asked Tuesday to join the action if the Supreme Court agrees to take up the issue. Those 10 state senators and 16 representatives (see list below) say they might not stop after gaining state ownership of BLM’s property which is largely sagebrush and desert prairie steppe.

Wyoming legislators’ could extend their claims to “all former federal territorial lands … now held by the United States … [including] parks, monuments, wilderness, etc.,” their brief states.

The federal government has until Nov. 21 to respond to what conservationists call a “land grab.”

“This lawsuit is as frivolous as they come and a blatant power-grab by a handful of Utah politicians whose escalating aggression has become an attack on all public lands as we know them,” Jocelyn Torres, an officer with the Conservation Lands Foundation, a Colorado nonprofit, said in a statement.

Unappropriated

Utah and its allies argue that BLM lands are “unappropriated” and should be the property of Western States. Because of the federal government’s “indefinite retention” of 18.5 million BLM acres, “Utah is deprived of basic and fundamental sovereign powers as to more than a third of its territory,” its bill of complaint states.

Sagebrush rebellion efforts like Utah’s legal gambit have popped up — and fallen short — repeatedly since the movement arose in the 1970s. They’ve been countered in part by western states ceding — in their constitutions at statehood — ownership of federal property to the government and all Americans.

“The people inhabiting this state do agree and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries thereof,” the Wyoming Constitution states. Further, Western states received federal property at statehood — two square miles in many surveyed 36-square-mile townships in Wyoming — to support schools and other institutions.

“Only Congress can transfer or dispose of federal lands,” the Lands Foundation said.

Gov. Gordon sees it differently.

“Wyoming believes it is essential for the states to be recognized as the primary authority when it comes to unappropriated lands within our borders,” he said in a statement Thursday.

The BLM manages 28% of the land in Wyoming, the brief states, most of it “unappropriated.”

Leaving vexing legal complexities to Utah, Wyoming’s brief focuses on “harms that federal ownership of unappropriated lands uniquely imposes on western States on a daily basis,” the amicus filing states. “In short, western States’ sovereign authority to address issues of local concern is curtailed, and billions of dollars are diverted away from western States.”

A ruling in favor of Utah would “begin to level the playing field … and restore the proper balance of federalism between western States and the federal government,” the brief states.

If Utah prevails, Western states “would then have a fair chance to develop the land to attract prospective citizens,” Wyoming contends. Ownership of federal BLM land would let Wyoming and its allies “use and develop land … and reinvest more of the revenue generated.”

Wyoming’s 29-page brief concludes with the assertion that “[g]ranting the relief requested in Utah’s bill of complaint would make clear that western States are not second-class sovereigns.”

Legislators may want more

Wyoming lawmakers say that Wyoming expected at statehood that Congress would some day “dispose” of the BLM lands in question as it had done with other states. Instead, lawmakers argue the federal government is exercising an unconstitutional police power in holding onto the property.

Turning the BLM land over to Wyoming would create a boom, lawmakers assert. “Developing natural resources in Wyoming could create thousands of jobs, generate billions of dollars in economic activity, and significantly boost the State’s economy,” the 10-page brief states.

Hageman and her D.C. legal allies say the U.S. Supreme Court has no choice but to hear the case.

The federal government denies Utah “basic sovereign powers,” Hageman and the other states’ congressional delegates say. 

“[W]hat the United States is doing to Utah is not directly analogous to one sovereign nation’s physical invasion of another, the brief states.” But existing federal control is just as serious as war, the brief contends, and needs to be addressed now.

The Supreme Court has never required states “to make a showing that war is actually justified,” when considering whether to immediately address a complaint like Utah’s,” Hageman’s brief states. “Instead, the standard is whether the federal government’s actions would amount to an invasion and conquest of that land if … Utah were a separate sovereign nation.”

Here’s a list of the Wyoming legislators who filed a brief in support of Utah.

Senators

Bo Biteman (R-Ranchester), Brian Boner (R-Douglas),

Tim French (R-Powell), Larry Hicks (R-Baggs), Bob Ide (R-Casper), John Kolb (R-Rock Springs), Dan Laursen (R-Powell), Troy McKeown (R-Gillette), Tim Salazar (R-Riverton), Cheri Steinmetz (R-Lingle).

Representatives

Bill Allemand (R-Midwest), John Bear (R-Gillette), Jeremy Haroldson (R-Wheatland), Scott Heiner (R-Green River), Ben Hornok (R-Cheyenne), Christopher Knapp (R-Gillette), Chip Neiman (R-Hulett), Pepper Ottman (R-Riverton), Sarah Penn (R-Lander), Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (R-Cody), Daniel Singh (R-Cheyenne), Allen Slagle (R-Newcastle), Scott Smith (R-Lingle), Tomi Strock (R-Douglas), Jeanette Ward (R-Casper), John Winter (R-Thermopolis).

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