United States Tenth Circuit

In proceedings arising from the proposed settlement of Utah's suit challenging Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) inventory, classification, and management of certain types of BLM and Utah state trust lands, dismissal of intervenors-environmental groups' claims challenging the settlement is affirmed where the district court properly determined that federal courts lack jurisdiction over the dispute on ripeness grounds, as there was no developed record illustrating how BLM applies the settlement in the context of specific land management decisions.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/04/2008
• Published 08/05/2008

Judges

• LUCERO, Circuit Judge., Before LUCERO, HARTZ, and HOLMES, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Tenth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• James S. Angell, Earthjustice, Denver, CO (Andrew E. Hartsig, Earthjustice, Denver, CO, and Heidi J. McIntosh and Stephen H.M. Bloch, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Salt Lake City, UT, with him on the briefs), for Defendants-Intervenors-Appellants., Todd S. Aagaard, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice Environment & Natural Resources Division, Washington, D.C. (Matthew J. McKeown, Acting Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., and Paul B. Smyth, U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of the Solicitor, Washington, D.C., with him on the brief), for Defendants-Appellees., Constance E. Brooks, C.E. Brooks & Associates P.C., Denver, CO (Michael Marinovich, C.E. Brooks & Associates P.C., Denver, CO;  John W. Andrews, Special Assistant Attorney General for the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, Salt Lake City, UT;  and Richard K. Rathbun, Assistant Attorney General and Mark Shurtleff, Attorney General for the State of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, with her on the briefs), for Plaintiffs-Appellees., Andrew Bremmer, Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, Denver, CO, filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the appellees.