WildEarth Guardians

Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Utah Attorney General Concludes Potential Lawsuit Demanding Public Lands Not Likely To Succeed

AG's position on issue at odds with Utah's conservative legislature
Contact: Chris Krupp

Contact: Chris Krupp, (206) 417-6363

Santa Fe, NM–Utah’s Attorney General Sean Reyes declined to vote against a report bluntly skeptical of the prospects for Utah’s legal claim to ownership of public lands in the state. Today WildEarth Guardians commended the Republican for placing the duty of his job over the political wishes of his party.

“As the state’s top law officer, Sean Reyes holds the final decision on whether Utah will sue to demand ownership of lands that belong to all of us,” said Chris Krupp, Public Lands Guardian for WildEarth Guardians. “In the face of what had to be tremendous pressure to toe the party line, it took guts to not dissent from the report finding Utah’s claim to public lands lacked merit. We’re glad to see he recognizes that the nation’s public lands are truly our common wealth and not for Utah to exploit and sell off to the highest bidder.”

On September 30, the Associated Press reported that the Conference of Western Attorneys General had approved a report finding the State of Utah had little chance of success if it were to file a lawsuit claiming ownership of the public lands inside its border.

Despite widespread support—including in western states—for public lands remaining in public hands, conservative politicians across the West have increasingly insisted the states are rightful owners of a large portion of our commonwealth. The top law officers across the region found little or no merit in that argument and voted 11-1 to approve the report

The report found the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the Property Clause of the Constitution gives the U.S. government the right to manage public lands for the use and benefit of all Americans, and exclusive power to decide whether those lands should be sold or kept public. The report found it well-established that the United States’ authority under the Constitution’s Property Clause has no limitations.

The report observed that as early as 1890 the U.S. Supreme Court stated that public lands do not belong to the residents of any particular state but “are held in trust for the people of the whole country.”

Despite this, Utah politicians have been adamant that the public lands within its borders belong to their state. In 2012, the Utah legislature passed H.B. 148, demanding that by the end of 2014 the United States turn over title to 31 million acres of public lands within the state. The legislature also paid $2 million to a team of lawyers to evaluate whether the state should file a claim in federal court. The outside lawyers’ evaluation concluded a lawsuit was worthwhile and recommended that Utah’s legislature urge the state’s attorney general to file suit.

The chief sponsor of Utah’s public lands takeover bill was Republican legislator Ken Ivory. Ivory is the former founding president of American Lands Council, a states’ rights group that has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to propagandize for state ownership of the nation’s public lands.

The Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has provided funding for American Lands Council. ALEC named Ivory its Legislator of the Year in 2014.

Ivory stepped down as American Lands Council’s president earlier this year to lead the Free The Lands campaign for Federalism in Action, another states’ rights group with ALEC ties.