EDITORIAL: Judge tosses lawsuit by Idaho governor over federal land-use restrictions to protect sage grouse

Like Nevada, the state of Idaho is caught in the middle of a federal government land grab moving forward under the guise of protecting the sage grouse.

Federal officials in 2015 declined to list the bird as endangered, but nevertheless moved forward with land-use restrictions throughout the West, including in Nevada.

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval had previously reached a deal with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell on the issue in an effort to minimize the economic impact in rural areas of the state. But Idaho Gov. Butch Otter has instead been at odds with the Beltway bureaucracy, arguing that his state collaborated with federal agencies on a plan to deal with the sage grouse only to have the blueprint ignored in favor of more stringent regulations.

Gov. Otter responded by suing the federal government over the land-use constraints.

Last week, however, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., dismissed the legal action, holding that Gov. Otter lacked standing to bring the suit. “The court finds plaintiffs’ legal support for standing based on injury to state sovereignty to be unpersuasive,” wrote U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, a Bill Clinton appointee.

The decision seems quite curious. The issue of “standing” — essentially that only those who have a direct interest in a case may pursue the matter in court — comes up in virtually every environmental lawsuit. But, increasingly, the hurdle seems to be higher for those seeking to curtail the overactive regulatory state than for environmentalists eager to use the courts to slow economic activity.

The principle of “standing” must be applied equally to all litigants. If a governor doesn’t have standing to sue the federal government over activity within his state, who does?

“Now, the courts are telling Idaho and other Western states that we have no recourse to this top-down approach, either administratively or through the judicial system,” Gov. Otter said.

He’s right. His state should appeal.