Document Type
Article
Subject Area
Land & Water Division
Abstract
The Property Clause of Article IV of the United States Constitution provides: “Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States.” Thus, among other things, the Constitution assigns the disposal of federally owned lands to Congress alone. That means the other branches of the federal government, including the courts, have no jurisdiction to exercise this power or to compel Congress to use it. Put another way, when Congress does not dispose of public lands through sale or transfer, that inaction is not subject to executive override or judicial review. The only remedy for Congress’s decision to retain public lands rather than sell them is at the ballot box. In August 2024, Utah attempted to sue the federal government in the Supreme Court of the United States to compel Congress to sell or transfer millions of acres of public lands. While Utah’s quixotic effort failed, this Article treats Utah’s lawsuit as a case study in how states and others will try to circumvent Congress to compel the federal government to divest itself of public lands. It concludes any effort to achieve the forced divestment of public lands outside the law-making process in Congress is unconstitutional.
DOI
10.59643/1942-9916.1520
Rights
Copyright © 2025 by the Wyoming Law Review unless otherwise noted. Except as otherwise provided, copies of any article may be made for classroom use, provided that: (1) Copies are distributed at or below cost; (2) The author and the journal are identified; (3) Proper notice of copyright is affixed to each copy, and (4) The Wyoming Law Review is notified of the use.
Recommended Citation
Semerad, Ryan A.
(2025)
"The Political Question of Public Lands,"
Wyoming Law Review: Vol. 25:
No.
2, Article 1.
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.uwyo.edu/wlr/vol25/iss2/1