re: BLM vs. Nevada Rancher

The federal government is wrong, they have zero right to own 80 percent of Nevada nor large tracts of land in the west.

Seems the reason Nevada got statehood in 1864 was that Lincoln and company felt the presidential race with 3 candidates running might go to the house of representatives, thus they allowed Nevada to become a state with only 40,000 people instead of the required 60,000 people, which was against the law ( seem familiar ?)also Lincoln had a narrow loss on his propsed 13th amendment, and figured that Nevada could help his cause here. So, in return for statehood, that was really against the law, the new state surrndered any right, title, or claim to the unappropriated public lands lying within Nevada. Moreover, this can't be altered without the consent of the federal government. Hence, the people of Nevada can't claim any land whatsoever because politicians needed Nevada for the 1864 election, bud didn't want to hand over anything in return.
Ronald Reagan argued for the turnover of such lands to the state and local governments in the 1980's. Clearly the surrender of all claims to any land for statehood was illegal under the constitution. The Supreme Court actually addressed this in :

Pollard's Lessee vs. Hagan ( 1845 ) when Alabama became a state in 1819. The question presented was concerning a clause where it was stated “ that all navigable waters within said state shall remain public highways, free to citizens of said state, and of the United States without any tax, duty, impost, or toll therefor imposed by said state.”

The SCOUS held that this clause was constitutional because it “ Conveys no more powers over the navigable waters of Alabama to the Government of the United States than it possesses over navigable waters of other states under the provisions of the constitution.”

The Pollard decision expressed a statement of constitutional law in dictum making it very clear that the Feds have no claim over the lands in Nevada. The Supreme Court states :

The United States never held any supreme sovereignty, or right of soil in and to the territory of which Alabama, or any of the new states, were formed, except for temporary purposes, and to execute the trusts created by the acts of the Virgina and Georgia legislatures, and the deeds of cession executed by them to the United States, and the trust created by the treaty of April, 1803, with the French Republic ceding Louisiana.

So, in other words, once a territory becomes a state, the federal government must surrender all claims to the land as if it were still just a possession or territory.

The SCOTUS made it clear in 1845 that the constitution forbids the federal government to retain ownership of the territory and simultaneously grant state sovereignty. At the very minum it became state-land not federal land.