暗黑爆料

Freshman Representative Jeff Hurd (R-Colo.) is sponsoring a bill that would require Bureau of Land Management field offices across the west to adopt plans that would open up more lands to oil and gas drilling.

The announcement comes as many cities and rural communities across the Mountain West struggle with housing affordability. About half the land in the West is owned by the federal government.

A bipartisan team of researchers leads Colorado College's annual "Conservation in the West" poll of about 3,300 voters in eight western states: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico.

Public lands advocates worried that allowing Utah鈥檚 case to move forward would threaten to upend management of 200 million acres of public lands across the West.

The Department of Justice says Utah gave up the rights to the federal lands within its boundaries when it joined the union in 1896.

If the U.S. Supreme Court hears the case, it could drastically change the ownership and management of public lands across the West.

The outcome of the case could determine how much authority a president has to resize national monuments, which could impact Colorado鈥檚 Camp Hale and Dolores River.

The plan opens up 31 million acres of public lands to solar development across 11 western states.

Fights over public lands aren鈥檛 unusual in the West. But Utah is now going straight to the U.S. Supreme Court to wrest control of 18.5 million acres of federal land.

The guidance documents tell state and field office managers across the West how to carry out the new rule, which officially went into effect in June.