The Utah Legislature has passed a resolution urging Congress to respect local authority over disputed roads that cross federal land.

HCR14, sponsored by Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, asserts that federal land managers have ignored an 1866 congressional act -- RS2477 -- allowing rights of way across unprotected federal lands for highways. Congress repealed that act in 1976 and whether counties had asserted their rights to many unpaved routes before that time has been a controversy across the West ever since.

The resolution names several routes that Utah counties claim authority over, including the Hole in the Rock pioneer wagon trail south of Escalante.

"It was one of the last covered-wagon roads, and it's been a road for over 150 years," Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, said before the Senate gave the measure its final approval 23-1. Only Sen. Ross Romero, D-Salt Lake City, voted against it.

Dayton counts grandparents and great-grandparents among the Mormon pioneers who crossed the trail on a church assignment to settle San Juan County.

Other routes singled out by the resolution as worthy of local control include the Pony Express Trail in Tooele County and the Burr Trail in Garfield County.