December 18, 2024 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUWA Challenges Utah’s Unlawful Land Grab Litigation Before US Supreme Court – 12.18.24

SUWA’s lawsuit alleges Governor Cox, Attorney General Reyes violated Utah Constitution

Contacts:
Grant Stevens, Communications Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (319) 427-0260; grant@suwa.org

Salt Lake City, UT – Today, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) filed a lawsuit against Utah Governor Spencer Cox and Attorney General Sean Reyes over the State of Utah’s unlawful land grab litigation brought before the United States Supreme Court. 

Filed in Utah’s Third District Court (state court), SUWA v. Cox alleges that Governor Cox and Attorney General Reyes violated the Utah Constitution’s provision that the “people inhabiting this State do affirm and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within [its] boundaries.” This language was a condition of statehood and is found in both Utah’s Constitution and the Utah Enabling Act, which led to Utah’s entry into the Union. Below is a statement from SUWA Legal Director Steve Bloch and additional information. 

“SUWA’s lawsuit seeks to stop Gov. Cox and Attorney General Reyes from violating the State Constitution and dismantling a core part of Utah’s identity: public lands.” said SUWA Legal Director Steve Bloch. “Not only is Utah’s lawsuit illegal, it asks the US Supreme Court to order the United States to begin the sell-off or ‘disposal’ of millions of acres of public lands, including into private ownership. These are places Utahns and Americans hike, hunt, sightsee, and recreate. Utah’s lawsuit would take all of that away.”

SUWA is represented by Christine Durham, Deno Himonas, and Jess Krannich at the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Fred Voros and Troy Booher at the law firm Zimmerman & Booher. 

Additional information:

In August 2024, the State filed an unprecedented lawsuit at the United States Supreme Court seeking an order requiring that the federal government begin selling off or otherwise “disposing” of more than 18.5 million acres of public lands in Utah. If successful, this effort would implicate more than 200 million acres of public lands across the West.

In support of its dangerous lawsuit and in an effort to confuse the public, the State is spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money on a propaganda campaign – dubbed “Let Utah Manage Utah Lands” – that fundamentally misstates both the facts and goals of its unprecedented lawsuit:

• As the State concedes in its legal filings, the public lands that are the target of its lawsuit were never owned by Utah. Instead, Native American Tribes have lived in what is present-day Utah from time immemorial and the federal government acquired all the lands comprising Utah from Mexico in 1848. The Ute Indian Tribe filed a brief with the US Supreme Court that urges the Court to dismiss Utah’s lawsuit, calls out Utah’s “vision of an America without public lands” and highlights the threat Utah’s filing poses to the Tribe’s Uncompahgre Reservation.

• As a condition of entry to the Union, in 1896 the citizens of Utah “forever disclaim[ed] all right and title” to the unappropriated public lands within its borders. The State’s lawsuit seeks to re-write the agreement that allowed it to become a part of the United States.

• If successful, the State’s lawsuit will not result in public lands automatically being given to Utah but instead would start a “disposal” process which could result in the sale of millions of acres of public lands to the highest bidder.

• A 2016 report by the Public Lands Subcommittee of the Conference of Western Attorneys General evaluated the same legal claims raised by Utah in its 2024 land grab filing and concluded that they are contrary to more than a hundred years of legal precedent. Hunters, anglers, and wildlife advocates have all singled out Utah’s lawsuit as a direct threat to the future of America’s public lands.
• A map of lands in the state’s lawsuit.

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The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters from around the country dedicated to protecting America’s redrock wilderness. From offices in Moab, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC, our team of professionals defends the redrock, organizes support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, and stewards this world-renowned landscape. Learn more at www.suwa.org.