Sun soaks rock formation in Arches National Park, Utah. (proimos / flickr) http://www.flickr.com/photos/proimos/ / CC BY 2.0
What did Allan Ginsberg say about his generation and madness? It would appear that our contemporary loss of sanity in the nation’s politics have now enveloped federally protected landscapes.
From the L.A. Times:
The Utah House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bill allowing Utah to use eminent domain to seize land the federal government owns and has long protected from development.
The state wants to develop three hotly contested areas — national forest land in the Wasatch Mountains north of Salt Lake City, land in a proposed wilderness area in the red rock southwestern corner of the state, and a stretch of desert outside of Arches National Park that the Obama administration has declared off-limits to oil and gas development.
As one Republican assemblyman said, those who are disenfranchised or seething in anger at the federal government are faced with two choices – open rebellion or lawsuits.
The Utah House has chosen lawsuits. But what if lawsuits fail?
The article says legal scholars doubt the plan will work, but that doesn’t mean they and their colleagues in other state legislatures can’t try:
The eminent domain proposal is among the most audacious yet in a state accustomed to heated battles over the two-thirds of its land owned by the federal government.
This is the state, after all, where local officials bulldozed their own roads through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, tore down signs barring off-roading in Canyonlands National Park and, with funding from the statehouse, spent years unsuccessfully defending those actions in federal court.
I count myself among the “Commoners,” those Americans who struggle to maintain our common sense whenever we read or see news reports of people shouting and acting in hyperbole. And I just wonder how much longer us Commoners can put up with this kind of stunt. And can you imagine the legal consequences should Utah succeed, essentially allowing states to seize any federal land?
