The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected Utah's lawsuit seeking control of 18.5 million acres of federal land. Why it matters: State officials put on a costly campaign of TV ads and other marketing, to encourage SCOTUS to take up the case.

The Supreme Court is turning back a push by the state of Utah to wrest control of vast areas of public land from the federal government.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up Utah’s lawsuit aimed at wresting control of more than 18 million acres of public land in the state from the federal government. In its lawsuit, filed in August,

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a lawsuit by Utah that argued the federal government was unconstitutionally holding onto vast, unreserved swathes of the Republican-led state's territory comprising more than a third of the land within its borders.

Utah filed its lawsuit against the United States government last August. The state argued that it is deprived of more than one-third of the land within its border, deeming the amount of land managed by the Bureau of Land Management “unconstitutional” and a federal policing of power.

The state in August filed a lawsuit asking the court to declare the federal Bureau of Land Management’s ownership of 18.5 million acres of land in Utah unconstitutional.

It took the U.S. Supreme Court 12 words and one period to dismiss more than 300 pages of legal arguments in which Utah, Wyoming and other Western states sought to

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a bid from the state of Utah to seize control of federally owned lands. The court denied the state’s petition, writing in a brief statement: “The motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided not to take up Utah's public lands lawsuit, but those for and against the case believe the argument isn't over.

This breaking story has been updated. The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday it will not hear Utah’s sweeping public lands lawsuit, where the state argued it should take over 18.5 million acres of federally controlled land within its borders.

According to a brief Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, 9 million acres of Idaho land managed by the Bureau of Land Management could be affected.