Shift Is Occurring in Balance of Power

Millard County Sheriff Ed Phillips had a lot to crow about as he stood on the brow of a hill and surveyed his vast territory of scattered ranch lands and desert hardpan.

After years of leading a fight to have state police powers taken away from federal land management agents in Utah, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service are at last prepared to hold their noses and accede.

Under an agreement being negotiated by the state council that oversees law enforcement certification, federal agents are expected on Aug. 13 to give up their authority to arrest people on state charges. After that, each of Utah’s 29 sheriffs may decide individually whether or not to deputize federal land agents to enforce local laws.

In Utah, where sentiment against the federal government runs deep, officials believe fewer than half of the state’s sheriffs will want to enlist federal agents.

“We won, by hell,” said Phillips, a 54-year-old shoot-from-the-lip lawman who heads a movement to curtail what he regards as intrusion by the federal cops into local jurisdictions. “We kept our eyes on the prize and got control of what goes on in our counties.”

“Now they are going to be beholden to us, or they’re out of business,” he said. “For the first time, they will be accountable to someone other than the ‘Beltway Bandits’ 2,000 miles away in Washington, D.C.”

Those provocative ideas, coupled with political strong-arming, are aggravating what has long been a sore point in rural law enforcement across the West: the jurisdictional battle between county sheriffs and federal land management agencies.

They also are starting to shift the balance of law enforcement powers in favor of Western rural sheriffs, who are on a roll this summer.

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Responding to a challenge against the Brady Act brought by sheriffs in Montana and Arizona, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that Congress did not have the power to compel local sheriffs to conduct background checks of potential gun purchasers.

On July 1, New Mexico, through its Legislature, enacted a law requiring federal land management officers to win approval from local sheriffs before they can enforce state laws.

Now, Utah’s Council on Peace Officer Standards and Training is preparing to side with Western rural sheriffs rebelling against perceived federal encroachment.

“It’s about time the federal government got reined in a little,” said Marvin Hare, an Arizona sheriff and president of the Western Sheriffs Assn. “The Feds have a tendency to run roughshod over local law enforcement in the rural areas.”

Keith Aller, BLM special agent in charge of law enforcement in Utah, disagreed.

“Utah’s sheriffs will have achieved what they wanted to do--slap the federal government in the face,” Aller said. “Where does this leave us? We’ll still be able to do our jobs. But when sheriffs call on us for assistance, we’ll have to say, ‘No.’ ”

Given that federal officers mainly want state police powers to protect them from civil liability in emergency situations, Aller said, “What the sheriffs are doing doesn’t make sense.”

The dispute started a decade ago when federal land authorities in Utah obtained state peace officer status, ostensibly to better accomplish their missions at parks and recreational areas by being able to arrest people who violate traffic, alcohol and drug laws.

Today, the BLM and Forest Service combined have 30 officers in Utah whose primary job is to protect resources ranging from prehistoric ruins to endangered species on 30 million acres of land. Among them is a BLM ranger assigned to patrol a portion of high desert that includes more than half of Phillips’ 7,000-square-mile Millard County.

“That’s one ranger too many,” Phillips said. “I’ve got nothing against the man. I just wish his position didn’t exist.”

Across the state, federal land agents have been funding and running drug interdiction programs, using rented helicopters and pilots, and helping out with highway checkpoints and emergency response efforts.

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“That stuff is none of their business,” said Phillips, a lifelong resident of this community of 3,000 people 140 miles south of Salt Lake City. “They have no more ability to investigate a serious felony than to fly to the moon.

“But more than that, it’s the principle of the damn thing,” he said. “What the hell are they elbowing their way into drug interdiction for? They’re rangers and they ought not be in the law enforcement business.”

Adjusting the brim of his white cowboy hat and gazing across miles of BLM-managed lands, Phillips smiled and said, “The best government is closest to the people.”

In the meantime, federal land officers in Utah can continue to arrest people on state charges for at least another month.

“Are we going to? Nooooo!” Aller said. “Not unless it’s a life-and-death matter.”