Talk:Utah Transfer of Public Lands Act

A fact from Utah Transfer of Public Lands Act appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 17 February 2015 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that 64% of Utah is federal land, and Utah wants it? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2015/February. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Utah Transfer of Public Lands Act.

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The article reads like a brief from the plaintiffs. Many legal opinions are expressed without the opposing point of view being mentioned. Perhaps the article could be rewritten as an historical account of the lawsuit, rather than as the presentation of a legal case.--Thelema12 (talk) 19:39, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked for any reference to a lawsuit, and have not been able to find one. It seems like maybe no lawsuit has been filed, but one could eventually be filed at some point in the future. If you have a source for a lawsuit, please add it to the article.

As of now, it seems to be a pretty straightforward case of Utah has passed a law, some talk-talk may have been happening between the state and the Federal government, but I have not found a source documenting any official meetings/negotiations between the two entities. N2e (talk) 04:21, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking the exact same thing. This is completely one-sided. Hzoi (talk) 00:47, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So I started to add some of the arguments on the other side (I began with the economic section). Still not sure the article can be fixed this way. May need a rewrite.--Thelema12 (talk) 22:19, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Have you located any more sources for this? Contrary to earlier assertions in this section, the article does not appear to be conveying one side of a lawsuit (because there is no lawsuit any of us have been able to find). Also, there is a pro and con section now, which editors are free to add to as sources are located. Does not look like a great deal of controversy exists on the general statements of the article, nor its sourcing. N2e (talk) 20:05, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

With no action here on Talk, and two sides of the pro/con presented in the article now, I've removed the POV tag from the article. If something else comes up, start another discussion. N2e (talk) 02:05, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've tagged the article as needing to be checked for WP:NPOV. The lead section in particular seems to be editorialized. I'll make changes that I believe to be helpful, and I'd welcome input from others. Moonboy54 (talk) 22:36, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It appears as if the changes you made address the concerns. If there are further concerns, please discuss them here on the Talk page. N2e (talk) 15:42, 6 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Because the state of Utah was allowed to form at the convenience of the Federal government, there has never been a time when Utah owned the lands in question. For this reason, any portion of the page that uses language like "return" or "take back" is factually erroneous and reveals an editorializing bias in favor of those opposing Federal control. Utah can not "take back" or have "returned" something that it never owned. [unsigned comment made by 137.200.0.106 on 2016-01-04T14:55:54 ]

That appears to be an open question, where at least the State of Utah has taken a different position on the matter, and the legal claims will likely be contested in the courts for a few years. As it stands, this article is about the Utah Act, and it does assert that the Federal government had a "duty to dispose" (now sourced in the article, in the BYU Law Review article) of the lands per the original 1894 Utah Enabling Act. I have no idea who will prevail in the courts, but the premise of the more recent Utah Public Lands Act does seem to be that the lands, or a portion of them, should be Utah's. And that is what the lede currently summarizes.

Now it may very well be useful for the lede to also include a sourced counterargument, say in a second paragraph in the lede. So if you have a source, please write the counter argument and source it. So far, I've not seen a source that identifies a US Federal Government position on the matter, just a legal analysis piece by the UU law professor. Cheers. N2e (talk) 17:14, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]