The Supreme Court turned back a push by the state of Utah to wrest control of vast areas of public land from the federal government on Monday. The high court refused to let the GOP-controlled state file a lawsuit seeking to bring the land and its resources under state control.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up Utah’s lawsuit aimed at wresting control of more than 18 million acres of public land in the state from the federal government. In its lawsuit, filed in August,

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a lawsuit by Utah that argued the federal government was unconstitutionally holding onto vast, unreserved swathes of the Republican-led state's territory comprising more than a third of the land within its borders.