Lawmakers postpone vote on bill forcing public-lands lawsuit

After years of debate over control of Utah's public lands, one state lawmaker wants to settle the argument by giving the attorney general's office a hard deadline to sue the federal government for control. Sen. Jim Dabakis, a Salt Lake City Democrat, has said he doesn't think Utah has a claim to the land, but the issue needs to be put to rest after years of dispute. Organizations and officials on both sides have been able to "feed off" the ongoing debate and use it to stir up their supporters and raise money, Dabakis said. "There's kind of institutionalized slowness in not really solving this," he said Monday. "It's time it's over. It's time to get it solved. It's time to move on with our state's life." Dabakis has introduced a bill that would have required Attorney General Sean Reyes to file a federal lawsuit by the end of this summer. But Republican leaders on the Senate Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee said Monday afternoon that they'd support the bill if Dabakis pushed the deadline back a year to June 30, 2016. Utah's Republican-controlled Legislature has begun preparing for a possible lawsuit, but it has not laid out a timeline. Lawmakers set aside $2 million to prepare a legal fight for the state attorney general to pursue...more

I believe this will be resolved politically, with an administrative solution being made to transfer part of these lands to the states.  I would be happily surprised if a federal court would mandate such a transfer, although the threat of an adverse court ruling may bring a friendlier administration to the negotiation table.  Then of course, there are politicians like this:

If the U.S. Supreme Court or a federal court rules against Utah, Dabakis said, "then we sit down, roll up our sleeves and move on."

If the courts rule against us, then he better sit down because the feds will continue to stick it up his ying-yang into infinity.  Who wants to roll up their sleeves for that?