Utah’s West Desert, which includes much of the “unappropriated land” controlled by the Bureau of Land Management that the state argues it should control, is pictured on Monday, Sept. 3, 2018. (Kyle Dunphey/Utah News Dispatch)
A handful of states are throwing their support behind Utah’s lawsuit that questions whether the Bureau of Land Management can hold onto nearly 18.5 million acres of public land within the state’s borders.
Filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in August, Utah’s lawsuit argues that the BLM can’t indefinitely hold onto land without giving it a designation, like a national monument, national forest or wilderness area. Those 18.5 million acres are what the state calls “unappropriated land” — they’re still leased for grazing, recreation and mineral extraction, but have no designation…