|
First a little history.
In 1846 the American government invaded Mexico
in what we call the "Mexican American War".
After the American government conquered Mexico, American troops in Mexico City forced the Mexican government to sign the "Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo". That treaty allowed the American government to buy or steal most of California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Texas from Mexico at a bargain price. Since then the American government split the stolen land into states. And of course Utah is one of those states. I suspect the American government gave the title to the stolen lands to the states it created, but I don't know the nitty gritty details. States' rights: Utah bills demand return of federal land By Ashley Powers March 3, 2012, 8:10 a.m. Reporting from Las Vegas — Utah lawmakers are staging their own kind of Sagebrush Rebellion. The Utah House passed four bills this week demanding that the federal government hand over more than 30 million acres of land to the state, legislation that its own attorneys warned would likely be tossed out in court. But the Republican majority, resentful of Washington’s power to limit mining, oil and gas drilling and agriculture on 60% of the state’s land, said a costly legal battle would be worthwhile, the Associated Press reported. Utah is among the Western states that have long chafed at the role Washington plays in its affairs. In the 1970s, as part of the Sagebrush Rebellion, a number of them passed laws demanding control of federal lands. (Alaskans went even further, burning a National Park Service plane and setting up a statehood commission that was viewed as a flirtation with secession.) Though much of the West has moved onto other battles, Utah still thinks of the land war as one worth waging. Local officials have previously bulldozed their own roads through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which was created in 1996 when President Clinton signed legislation setting aside 1.7 million acres for the park. In another display of displeasure, local officials ripped down signs in Canyonlands National Park. This year’s bills are not the first to try to take control of federal land. "It’s time to get an answer to the question: Has the state of Utah been wronged by our violation of our contract when we came into this Union?” state Rep. Ken Sumsion asked during this week’s debate, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. Republicans in the state Senate, the bills’ next destination, and Republican Gov. Gary Herbert have expressed support for the legislation as well. But Bob Abbey, head of the federal Bureau of Land Management, waved off the state’s efforts earlier this week. “It’s sad that they’re spending so much time debating something that has absolutely no chance of ever happening in the real world,” he told the Tribune. |