Comment by briandear
I’m not the OP, but Utah Power & Light Co. v. United States, 243 U.S. 389 (1917) says the state can not seize federal lands. There’s the Supremacy Clause and the Constitution specifically spells out that the (US) Congress has authority over the federal lands.
A state could apply for a license from the Department of the Interior, but no, a state can’t take federal lands via eminent domain. This is long-settled and even a plain English reading of the Constitution makes this pretty clear. There are mountains of cases on the Supremacy Clause that support this.
If California were to use a hypothetical eminent domain to seize U.S. land, they’d have already done it with Moffett Field if only to get the property tax revenue from the Google Gulfstreams parked there.
So the great thing about American politics is that the states can do whatever they want and the feds can do whatever they want and then we can see who did what legally after the fact. In the meantime, the state won't literally burn killing people as the fire wages its path of destruction.
again, we need politicians with chutzpah. Oregon recently arrested federal officials for similar environmental issues. I'm not 100% read up on the entire case, but I appreciate people trying to do what's right instead of armchair governance.
> This is long-settled and even a plain English reading of the Constitution makes this pretty clear. There are mountains of cases on the Supremacy Clause that support this.
Luckily we have a new Supreme Court makeup that might make a more sensible decision when it comes to states literally doing what needs to be done so their citizens don't literally die in infernos.