Andrus v. Utah

The State of Utah claims the right to select extremely valuable oil shale lands located within federal grazing districts in lieu of and as indemnification for original school land grants of significantly lesser value that were frustrated by federal pre-emption, or private entry, prior to survey. The question presented is whether the Secretary of the Interior is obliged to accept Utah’s selections of substitute tracts of the *502same size as the originally designated sections even though there is a gross disparity between the value of the original grants and the selected substitutes. We hold that…