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Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Utah readies attempt to take over federal lands, expects legal challenge, hopes for good ruling

The latest development in the ongoing battle over federal lands in the West is one state's attempt to trump the feds. "The Utah House of Representatives last week passed a bill allowing the state to use eminent domain to take land the federal government owns and has long protected from development," Nicholas Riccardi of the Los Angeles Times reports. Several state lawmakers said they welcomed the possible court decision that would result from the law.

"I love America, and I'm a peaceful guy," Republican Rep. Chris Herrod, one sponsor, told Riccardi, "but the only real option we have is rebellion, which I don't believe in, and the courts." Scott Groene, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance termed the attempt "an ideological fantasy," and told Riccardi, "Everybody knows this isn't going to happen. The federal public lands are the thing that makes the American West so great."

But not everyone agrees with Groene. "In the Intermountain West, particularly in rural areas, residents have long complained that federal preservation of land has prevented development that could provide reliable jobs and bolster the tax base," Riccardi writes. The legislators want to seize and open two roads, previously closed by the federal government, through national forest land to encourage development of high-end cabins along the corridor, and open "a swath of federal land outside Arches National Park where the George W. Bush administration, on the eve of the 2008 election, authorized oil and gas exploration," Riccardi writes. The Obama administration previously reversed the Bush decision. (Read more) Herrod also told Brandon Loomis of The Salt Lake Tribune the land was needed for school development.

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