Federal Land Seizures Urged by Utah Governor

By JIM CARLTON

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed a bill Saturday authorizing Utah to file eminent domain proceedings against federally owned land, primarily to gain access to state-owned parcels to be able to drill where trucks and pipelines now can't reach.

Utah's new law authorizing it to condemn and take control of some federal lands isn't likely to prevail, experts say.

In signing the legislation this weekend, Gov. Herbert is appealing to long-simmering ire in the West over federal control of natural resources at a time of escalating tension between some states and the White House.

Utah has almost no chance of prevailing in a condemnation case, legal experts said, because the U.S. Constitution grants the federal government sovereignty over state land it acquires.

A Utah legislative review of the bill concluded that "there is a high probability that a court would hold that federal government is the sovereign of public lands," acquired when Utah became a state in 1896.

But the governor's legislation is likely to garner support particularly in Western states, which have long chafed under the federal control of the majority of public lands there, said Charles Wilkinson, a law professor at the University of Colorado.

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