(Salt Lake City, UT) – A handful of states, including Iowa, are throwing their support behind Utah’s lawsuit that questions whether the Bureau of Land Management can hold onto nearly 18.5 million acres of public land within the state’s borders. Filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in August, Utah’s lawsuit argues that the BLM can’t indefinitely hold onto land without giving it a designation, like a national monument, national forest or wilderness area. Those 18.5 million acres are what the state calls “unappropriated land” — they’re still leased for grazing, recreation and mineral extraction, but have no designation. Now, 12 states and a few state legislatures are supporting Utah’s effort, signing amicus briefs with the nation’s high court.
An amicus brief, also called a “friend of the court” brief, is filed by organizations or individuals who are not named in the lawsuit, but have an interest in the case or would like to support a particular side. In total, 11 briefs have been filed with the Supreme Court by various groups, states and politicians, all of them supporting Utah’s effort. The Iowa Capital Dispatch says the states filing briefs include Iowa, which spearheaded a brief signed by attorneys general from Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas.
The brief spearheaded by Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador argues the federal government’s control of unappropriated land curtails state sovereignty. In the filing, attorneys argue that the state’s inability to control that land causes a host of problems. There’s a different criminal code; the land cannot be taxed by the state and results in tax hikes; the state cannot exercise eminent domain; and the state can’t generate revenue from grazing fees, mineral leases or timber sales, the brief claims.
The brief led by Iowa and signed by eight other attorneys general focuses more on whether the Supreme Court should take up the case, and less on the merits of Utah’s lawsuit. Utah is invoking original jurisdiction, which allows states to petition directly to the Supreme Court rather than starting in a lower court and then going through the appeals process. To invoke original jurisdiction, the issue needs to be between a state and the federal government. Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said in a news release, “States have a right to sue the federal government, and the citizens of those States have the right to have their interests heard in court.” Bird says she is “Calling on the Supreme Court to let Utah make its case for control over its own lands.”
Most of the cases considered by the high court are appeals — in Iowa’s brief, attorneys ask the justices to consider Utah’s complaint. “Few issues are as fundamentally important to a State as control of its land,” the brief reads. “The Amici States respectfully ask this Court to take this case out of respect for the sovereign dignity inherent in a State’s dispute against the United States.”
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