Imagine owning a house, and the town mayor controls two rooms simply because he is the mayor and believes he can put them to better use than you can. Not a very pleasant thought, right?

This situation is not so different from the ongoing battle between states and the federal government over federally-controlled public lands. As Utah State Rep. Ken Ivory, president of the American Lands Council and senior policy fellow at State Budget Solutions, explains: “For decades now, Washington has been progressively commandeering from local control, matters of land access, land use and land ownership, particularly, though not exclusively, throughout the western states. States, counties, municipalities, businesses and individuals have been reeling to defend against the metastasizing maze of federal policies, regulations and edicts.”