uly 8, 2010 - 9:59 AM | by: Eric Shawn
Mike Noel doffs his cowboy hat as he rounds up the wayward calves on his ranch just outside the Southern Utah town of Kanab.
It is hot and dusty in the summer sun, but the battle that the 62 year old rancher and Republican state legislator is saddle up for, pits his state against the nation's capital.
"You've got a federal government that is stopping us from even developing our own private lands and our state trust lands here in Utah," he laments, saying there is "way too much control from a federal bureaucracy from 2,000 miles away that has no idea what our lifestyle is about here. It's really caused us great problems here in the state of Utah and throughout the West."
That is why Utah officials say they are fighting back.
Noel supports a new state law, signed by fellow Republican Governor Gary Herbert, that calls for the state to use the power of eminent domain to claim federal land. Eminent domain is routinely used by state and local governments to force the sale of private land for public projects, and even for private development. But in this case, Utah officials are turning the tables to return what they say, is theirs.
"We're not out here to destroy these lands, we're out here to develop them in a responsible manner," he says. The land "is beautiful, and we want people to come... we want to mitigate impact but we want to use it in a multi-use fashion," charging that politicians who oppose the efforts "are held captive by this radical left environmental community that does not want to see any development."
What has so riled up some in the beehive state, is the fact that the federal government controls almost 70% of the state's land. Only 21.2% of Utah is privately owned, and state officials have taken the step of passing the law to try to take control of some of the land that is now off limits.
"We want to make sure we can access land that we have ownership in," Governor Herbert told Fox News. "Eminent domain could be used to make sure we have access. Some of the properties that are not being utilized by the public ought to be put back into private ownership."
Sitting in his ornate office in the state capitol in Salt Lake City, the Governor rolls out a map that shows the overwhelming amount of land controlled by D.C. The eminent domain law, he says, is "born out of some frustration with the federal government controlling so much of our land mass...The federal government is encroaching a little too much into the areas of state responsibility and it's time for us to push back a little bit."
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