A Utah conservation group sued the state Wednesday for pursuing litigation before the Supreme Court that could force the Bureau of Land Management to transfer or sell millions of acres of federal land.
Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance filed a lawsuit in state district court asserting that Gov. Spencer Cox and Attorney General Sean Reyes, both Republicans, violated the state Constitution by filing the lawsuit in August seeking control of 18.5 million acres of BLM lands.
The Supreme Court has yet to decide whether it will hear the case.
But the SUWA lawsuit says the governor and attorney general don’t have authority to pursue the federal case, arguing that the state constitution says the people of Utah “forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within [its] boundaries.” What’s more, the enabling legislation that made Utah the 45th state in the union in 1896 included the same stipulation as a condition for statehood, the complaint says.
