Op-ed: Who will enforce these laws if not federal officers?

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Introduced in the House of Representatives in January by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Local Enforcement for Local Lands Act (H.R. 622) would eliminate hundreds of critical law enforcement jobs with the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. As someone who spent a career in public lands resource management — and a lot of years enforcing regulations on public lands and waters — I have major concerns with Rep. Chaffetz's bill. Here are just a few reasons why.

Numerous federal laws have been passed by Congress to protect our public lands and the resources they hold that state and county law enforcement officers simply do not have the legal authority to enforce. I'd start with what I consider to be the single most important law ever promulgated to protect wildlife in the United States, the Lacey Act. This law, which is really the hammer on those who would commercialize our wildlife resources, is of paramount importance. State conservation officers and county sheriff deputies can't issue a citation for violations of this bedrock law.

How about the Migratory Bird Act? While it doesn't protect many hunted game species, it sure is a critical law for protecting every other avian species in North America. Guess what? State conservation officers and county sheriff deputies can't issue Migratory Bird Treaty Act violation notices, either.

Then there is the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, which is vital in protecting the non-renewable cultural resources that are part of the critical mission of all federal land management agencies. That's right. State conservation officers and county sheriff deputies can't issue Archaeological Resources Protection Act citations. In fact, on non-state parks lands in Utah, it is actually legal to collect such resources. This was made clear by a case a few years ago when a judge dismissed a case against someone who was caught looting a Native American grave site on Utah state trust lands.

I could list another 10 federal laws that state and county officers do not have jurisdictional authority to enforce, but you get the drift. These are critical laws passed by Congress specifically to protect resources on public lands. H.R. 622 is part of the plan by Chaffetz and others to abdicate its responsibility to uphold the will of Congress that these lands be managed under very specific laws, with the goal of keeping our public lands and waters healthy for us and the generations that follow.

Jay Banta is an avid outdoorsman who spent a career dedicated to conserving and managing our public lands. He lives in St. George.