Utah asks Supreme Court to order federal government to dispose of 18.5 million acres of unappropriated land

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to declare unconstitutional the federal government’s practice of retaining unappropriated land inside the state and to order the United States to begin disposing of those lands, state Solicitor General Stan Purser said in an interview on the podcast Legally Speaking.

Purser said the state’s complaint, filed Aug. 20 and docketed by the Supreme Court Aug. 23, challenges federal retention of roughly 18.5 million acres of unappropriated land — territory he described as about 34% of the state and comparable in area to West Virginia. "The federal government controls roughly 69% of the land in Utah," Purser said, and "half of that is national parks, monuments, forest, military bases, tribal land" which the state is not challenging.

The suit presents a constitutional argument rooted in the Tenth Amendment and the notion that the federal government has only enumerated powers. "Our position in this lawsuit is there's nothing in the Constitution that authorizes the federal government just to sit…