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Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador recently joined Utah's baseless attempt to seize control of 18 million acres of national public land.
An editorial by the Lewiston Tribune describes Labrador's support for the Utah lawsuit as a discredited retread that is "doomed to fail," noting that Idaho lawmakers tried to take ownership of federal public land over a decade ago and failed. That's because suing the federal government in an attempt to transfer federal public lands to the state ignores the Property Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which states that Congress has absolute control over the transfer of federal lands.
Decades of precedent has upheld the Property Clause, and attempts to challenge it have resulted in hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars wasted. Utah's lawsuit could cost taxpayers substantially more than that, as the state is expected to pay at least $14 million in legal fees.
Taxpayer dollars aside, public lands in Utah could suffer if control of the land is transferred to the state. In a recent episode of the Landscape Podcast, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers CEO Patrick Berry describes how the likely privatization of these lands would cause wildlife habitat fragmentation and diminish hunting and fishing access.
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She was a living legend, and she became this ambassador for her species and a kind of rallying symbol for people working to conserve American public lands.”
