The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected Utah's lawsuit seeking control of 18.5 million acres of federal land. Why it matters: State officials put on a costly campaign of TV ads and other marketing, to encourage SCOTUS to take up the case.

The Supreme Court is turning back a push by the state of Utah to wrest control of vast areas of public land from the federal government.

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.