I woke up at 7:30 a.m. on Jan. 13 to frantically refresh my internet browser. I was eager to see if the U.S. Supreme Court would dismiss Utah’s land grab lawsuit.
On its face, the complaint is benign — Utah is simply asking to manage half of the federally-owned land in the state. But it’s much bigger than that. The case is a Trojan horse that could ultimately allow Utah — and other Western states — to take public land out of public hands and sell it to corporations and developers. Thankfully, the Supreme Court is passing on the case. But public lands are still in peril — along with the soul of the West.
To me, public lands are personal. When I moved to southeast Utah in 2019 to be a reporter, I was floored by the concept of public land. I grew up in Texas. My understanding of open land was that someone wealthy owned it — and they could shoot you for trespassing. I was shocked to learn you could drive out of town and camp just about anywhere in southern Utah. What a luxury. To sleep outside in Texas, you need access to a ranch or a reservation at a private or state-owned campground.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, I was living in Bluff on the doorstep of Bears Ears National Monument. My job as a reporter, which had once involved driving long distances to attend rural county commission meetings, now consisted of making calls from my kitchen table. After long, depressing days of reporting on COVID deaths, I turned to public lands for solace. I floated down the San Juan River in the summer and scrambled up red rock ridges in the winter.
This unfettered access to nature — to hike, bike, climb and camp — was threatened last August, when Utah filed its complaint with the Supreme Court, essentially seeking control of all land under the purview of the Bureau of Land Management in the state. The complaint, on its face, was about who should manage public lands. But after advocating for and reporting on public lands for five years, I knew it was about something much deeper: the very existence of public land.
For decades, Utah politicians have railed against the scourge of national public land. They have likened Utah to a second-class citizen because so much of the state is managed by the federal government. The state has sold off more than half of the trust land it received at statehood, including areas with great recreational value. As I write this, Sen. Mike Lee is attempting to use the nationwide affordable housing crisis as cover for selling our public lands to developers.
Public lands are some of the most valuable assets in our country, and wealthy individuals and corporations want to get their hands on them. For example, the Federal Housing Authority found that two of the three counties that saw the greatest increase in land prices from 2019 to 2022 are in the West. Meanwhile, almost 40% of Utah legislators profit from buying and selling real estate. Combine that with Utah’s ongoing obsession with fossil fuels, and it follows that this lawsuit was always about taking control of public lands in order to sell them to the highest bidder.
Thankfully, the Supreme Court refused to hear Utah’s complaint. Had the court agreed to take it, it could have spelled the end of life in the West as we know it. Utah will likely continue its legal crusade in the lower courts, wasting millions of dollars of taxpayer money in the process. And the state could also take its campaign to Congress. With a friendly president in the White House, Republicans could pass legislation to transfer federal lands to the states, which could sell them off to corporations, developers and investors.
The next four years will be a perilous time for public lands. But numbers are on our side: A 2024 poll by Colorado College found that 70% of Western voters support conserving public lands over leasing them to companies for profit. Westerners of all walks of life — and across the political spectrum — understand that public lands are a force for equality and democracy. United, we will fight to protect them.
(Kate Groetzinger) Kate Groetzinger is the communications manager at the Center for Western Priorities.
Kate Groetzinger is the communications manager at the Center for Western Priorities. She joined CWP in July 2021 after two years at Utah’s statewide public radio station, KUER, as its Southeast Utah bureau reporter. In that role, she covered Bears Ears National Monument and public land management issues extensively. She now co-hosts CWP’s podcast, “The Landscape,” and manages CWP’s social media. She works remotely from Salt Lake City. On the weekends, she enjoys hiking, knitting and skiing.
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