Claiming the Obama administration overstepped its bounds, the state of Utah is suing Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar over the Department of the Interior’s designation of six million acres of state territory as “wild lands.”

 

Utah officials insist the designating of new wild lands must come from Congress, and that the interior secretary has not possessed the unilateral power to create such designations since 1991.

 

Governor Gary Herbert called the Interior Department’s designation last December “not good for Utah” and “not good for America” because it could interfere with development of natural resources.

 

On the other side, The Salt Lake Tribune,in an editorial, dismissed the lawsuit as “grandstanding” and noted that Gov. Herbert had received at least $396,000 in campaign contributions from energy developers in 2010 alone. The editors added that “Areas that once would not have been considered by developers are now on the drilling permit list.”

 

Federally-created wilderness areas bar the use of motorized vehicles and many forms of resource development, but they do allow some recreation and livestock grazing. The Wild Lands rule allows the Bureau of Land Management to inventory and reassess the allowable uses of Utah’s disputed 6 million acres.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

Utah Fights Preservation of 6 Million Acres (by Jonny Bonner, Courthouse News Service)

BLM Inventory (editorial, Salt Lake Tribune)

Utah Sues Feds over Wildlands Policy (by Brandon Loomis, Salt Lake Tribune)

State of Utah v. Ken Salazar (U.S. Central Court, Utah, Central Division) (pdf)