Utah State Representative Chris Herrod has gotten a lot of attention since his bill to explore seizing federal land through eminent domain became law last month.

Colleagues in other Western legislatures have called seeking tips on replicating his success in their states. And the law was a topic of discussion this week when U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar paid a visit to Salt Lake City.

A majority of the land in Utah, as in many Western states, is owned by the federal government. Herrod’s measure treats the federal government like any other property owner in the state. It allows Washington to keep the rights and title to the land but not ultimate jurisdiction over it. That jurisdiction rests with Utah, and it means that federal land holdings may be subject to state eminent domain authority.

To Herrod, the law is an expression of long-simmering anger. Last year, he watched as the new Obama administration canceled 77 leases to oil and gas companies that had been approved by President George W. Bush. Then he saw a leaked administration memo that purported to list 14 sites as possible new national monuments, two of them in Utah.

Outrage over federal land policies is nothing new in Western states, where local officials have long sought to develop public land and collect tax revenue from it. Now, with Democrats in charge in Washington and conservative activists energized in their opposition towards the Obama administration’s health care, energy and budget policies, some in the West are trying to counter what they see as federal heavy-handedness in land-use matters. Herrod, a Republican, has spoken at Tea Party rallies trying to tap into that anger, although he is wary of calling his bill a “Tea Party bill.”

“It’s a natural outflow of the frustration,” he says. “We kind of feel like we’re serfs. We have this land and we have to beg Washington to see if we can use it.”

So far, there are few signs that the West is gearing up for a full-scale renewal of the Sagebrush Rebellion, the 1970s movement that challenged Washington’s control of public lands. While numerous bills have cropped up in Western legislatures attempting to wrest control of land from the federal government, few have been as radical as Herrod’s and few have received anywhere near the same attention. By contrast, when President Bill Clinton designated the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument on 1.9 million acres of public land in southern Utah, he touched off a fury in Western states that had many comparing it to the earlier uprising.

“I can’t see really anything in the Obama administration that would be cause to start another Sagebrush Rebellion,” says John Freemuth, a political scientist at Boise State University.

For instance, Interior Secretary Salazar is a Colorado rancher who last year decided to keep wolves off the endangered species list, furthering a Bush-era policy that angered environmentalists but pleased Western ranchers. The administration has spurned calls to list the sage grouse as an endangered species, a move that would close off vast swaths of land to development. Instead, Salazar has indicated he is willing to let states work through their own procedures for protecting the birds, which scientists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say need to be protected.

George Nickas, executive director of the environment group Wilderness Watch, is not worried. The Utah bill is little more than “political theater,” he says. “Every so often some of these folks in these states kind of rebel. They like to pick on the federal government and say ‘We resist any federal government control on these lands.’ My guess is it’s wrapped up in the anti-Obama, anti-federal government, anti-Washington, D.C., rhetoric that seems to be so hot right now.”

Herrod says his bill was intended to do more than send a message. He wants to use money generated from developing public lands to fund Utah schools. And he believes that if and when the law is subjected to a federal court test, it could win a 5-to-4 decision in the U.S. Supreme Court. Even some of Herrod’s supporters are skeptical of that view. “I’d say go for it but I think that’s a bit of a stretch,” says Lynn Luker, a lawyer and Republican state representative in Idaho.

Luker sits on the State Affairs Committee in the Idaho House, which last month approved a measure to explore suing the federal government to get control of parcels of federal land in Idaho. Members of the committee say that claiming the land could open it up for logging, which, Luker says, would reduce the risk of forest fires while also providing electricity from burning dead timber.

Other Western states are looking for ways to take on the federal government. Wyoming lawmakers approved a resolution that claimed sovereignty from Washington under the 10th Amendment. An almost identical resolution was debated but defeated in Nevada last year. Montana lawmakers voted on — and turned down — a bill to assert the state’s right to manage its own wolf population.

It’s still unclear whether Utah’s sweeping eminent domain legislation is a sign of things to come. “We’ve got this sort of opening shot from the Utah Legislature, and I think it remains to be seen whether any other Western state will adopt or pursue similar sorts of policies,” says Robert Keiter, a law professor and public lands expert at the University of Utah.

Utah’s anti-Washington sentiment did not stop state officials from warmly receiving Salazar this week as he tried to smooth over differences. But lawmakers and Governor Gary Herbert grilled the interior secretary on Utah’s effort to open old roads in federally protected areas and on the new eminent domain law.

Salazar said he got the message.

This story was reported by Stateline staff writer David Harrison.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is visiting Montana Saturday to gauge how people in the region feel about a proposed new law to manage the state’s forest land.

His visit includes a community meeting in Deer Lodge to hear local views on Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. Considered by its sponsor as collaborative effort between environmentalists, the timber industry and other stakeholders, the Act would attempt to balance the needs of all who have an interest in the state’s forest areas for things such as recreation, logging, fire management and hunting. Sec. Vilsack’s visit is being viewed as “due diligence.”

Bruce Farling, executive director of Montana Trout Unlimited, supports the Act and will attend the meeting. He says, while there has been a lot of focus on the logging and wilderness aspects in the proposal, the way it was crafted with input from a wide array of interests is what really has piqued interest from the Obama administration.

“There’s a whole bunch of people who normally don’t spend a lot of time together, don’t agree on a lot of natural resource management issues, who are doing just that.”

Sec. Vilsack will also meet with ag producers in Helena, and take an aerial tour of beetle-killed forests. Some of those beetle-killed trees could be harvested under the Tester bill, as well as trees in other areas. Farling says money from the timber would be used to repair roads that are weeping sediment into streams and damaging fish habitat, along with paying for other projects and putting people to work.

“The value of the trees removed will be reinvested on the same landscapes. We’ve got to fix some recreational infrastructure, like trails and bridges. We need to deal with this huge road system that hasn’t been maintained.”

Opposition to Sen. Tester’s bill comes from some off-roading groups and those who think no logging should be allowed.

The community meeting with Sec. Vilsack and Sen. Tester will occur Saturday, from 10:45 a.m. to 11:45 a.m., at the Powell County Community Center, 416 Cottonwood Ave., in Deer Lodge.

Listen to the Big Sky Connection podcast by Deborah Smith.

Getting Montanans back to work in national forests is a couple of steps closer, thanks to agreement among loggers, mill operators, conservationists, outfitters and motorized recreation groups.

The U.S. Forest Service is holding meetings today (Wednesday) on two proposed restoration projects that include jobs everyone agrees on, up front. Marnie Criley, coordinator of the Montana Forest Restoration Committee says her group gathered the interested parties, to clear up concerns together and find common ground.

“I think we’ve done a good job of getting folks to sit down and talk about restoration projects. One of the stumbling blocks to actually getting projects implemented is funding.”

President Obama’s proposed budget includes a separate fund for forest restoration, which Criley says would jumpstart projects that have been waiting for cash under the current funding model, which depends on good timber market prices.

“Going in and replacing culverts, dealing with old roads, dealing with weeds. With timber values being down, it’s made it even harder to do the needed restoration work that’s out there.”

The Lincoln meeting is at 4:00 p.m. at the Lincoln Ranger District office; the Missoula meeting is at 6:00 p.m. at the Missoula Public Library. Criley says addressing opposition to plans up front will avoid lawsuits later, and the new model could be used for future forest projects to keep land healthy.

Listen to the Big Sky Connection podcast by Deborah Smith.

The future of some of southwestern Colorado’s most rugged terrain will be decided in the new year. On Dec. 30, attorneys for oil and gas developers, conservation groups and federal agencies met in a Denver courtroom to continue a tug-of-war over whether to allow about 140 gas wells to be drilled in the HD Mountains east of Durango.

Five of the conservation groups, including the San Juan Citizens Alliance and The Wilderness Society, are being represented by Earthjustice in the lawsuit, filed in 2008. It asks U.S. District Court Justice Richard Matsch to stop any new drilling while he considers their request to overturn Forest Service approval of the wells.

At the heart of the controversy, says Earthjustice attorney Mike Freeman, are planning documents that outlined protections for the area — protections that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service now say were not set in stone.

“The Forest Service has promised the public in its forest planning documents that it would protect the HD Mountains and preserve the wildlife habitat that’s there for elk and deer and other species that Coloradans really cherish. It disregarded those commitments when it approved this project.”

The San Juan Basin is already home to tens of thousands of oil and gas wells, according to Freeman. He calls the Forest Service stand on this project “a shell game.”

“When they approved the project, they acknowledged that it was inconsistent with a lot of the commitments they made to protect the HD Mountains. But they said that they would just address those violations and correct them, when they approve individual wells to implement the project.”

Freeman says the area’s combination of rugged terrain and low elevation makes it good wildlife habitat, and it is also part of a larger watershed used by farms and ranches for irrigation. About 20 of the wells are already underway.

Listen to the New Mexico News Connection podcast by Chris Thomas.

A masterful analysis of the ugly truth behind Forest Service policy sausage-making offers many lessons for future land management lobbying.

Ray Ring’s exhaustive review of the ongoing federal roadless rule battle, just published at WyoFile, is a must-read for environmental proponents and foes alike. Ring adeptly avoids the emotionally-pitched ephemera of countless roadless rule stories and provides a rarely reported, insider look at the high stakes game being waged in the halls of Congress and mountain state communities.

But a closer look reveals things that the environmentalists might rather keep under wraps. The details behind the making of the rule, along with the PR campaign, demonstrate how all interest groups — from liberal enviros to libertarian Tea Partiers — carry out their goals using a mix of idealism, cynicism and brute-force politics.

Go. Read it. Now.