CHEYENNE - Wyoming does not have the legal right to sue the federal government over wolf management in the state, according to legal documents filed in U.S. District Court here Wednesday.

Wyoming Attorney General Pat Crank, however, finds that claim troubling, arrogant, absurd, outlandish and offensive.

"It's outlandish and it's arrogant to say, 'You citizens of Wyoming cannot even challenge, you don't even have the ability to question this federal action in your state,'" Crank said. "And it does offend me."

Having not heard Crank's remarks first-hand, Assistant U.S. Attorney Carol Statkus declined to respond.

Crank offered his reactions to the federal government's formal response Wednesday to Wyoming's lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Steve Williams over the department's refusal to accept Wyoming's dual-classification wolf management plan and law.

The lawsuit aims to force the feds to immediately approve the state's wolf management plan and move forward toward delisting the gray wolf in the West. It is also an effort to force the feds to control wolf depredation until the state assumes management of the species.

In their answer to Wyoming's lawsuit, the federal government defendants generally deny any part of the state's claim that alleges wrongdoing by the Interior Department.

The feds pointedly deny that the state is entitled to any relief.

"To the extent a response may be deemed necessary, defendants deny that the plaintiff is entitled to the relief requested or to any relief whatsoever," the feds' answer states.

The federal government also contends that the court does not have jurisdiction to hear the issue, that Wyoming failed to exhaust its administrative remedies before going to court, that Wyoming failed to state a legitimate claim for relief, and that Wyoming lacks standing, or the ability to legally sue over the wolf issue.

Crank did not like the feds' answer.

"The most disturbing thing in there is that they've alleged that the state of Wyoming has no standing to bring a lawsuit," he said. "If the state and its citizens, who have been subjected to this federal action, don't have the ability to question that action at all, I'm left to wonder who the heck does?"

If Wyoming does not have legal standing to sue, he said, why have a state government or a state legislature?

Plus, he said, the feds' contention that Wyoming cannot legally sue is made regardless of whether the Interior Department or its officials violated federal laws or the U.S. Constitution.

"It's sad, but that's the kind of absurdity and arrogance that this administration has shown toward states and particularly the state of Wyoming," Crank said.

He objected to the feds' refusal to address the actual issues of the case, which he said is a legal tactic often employed by the federal government.

"Why don't they defend on the merits, the question that we put squarely in front of the court: Did you reject the Wyoming wolf management plan under the dictates of the Endangered Species Act? I'm flabbergasted that they just won't answer that question."

He said the only reasons offered thus far by federal officials for rejecting the state's plan are not legally sufficient reasons for them to reject it.

Statkus, representing the federal government, said only that the feds' answer to Wyoming's lawsuit is a matter of public record, and it raises a number of defenses to the state's lawsuit.

She had no other comments to offer Wednesday beyond what the document states.

When the lawsuit was filed in April, Gov. Dave Freudenthal said the state's wolf management plan "was rejected, as they explained to us, on a legal risk, slash, political analysis, summed up by the phrase, 'We don't think an Eastern judge will like the word predator.'"

Wyoming's dual-classification plan called for managing the wolves as trophy game in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and nearby areas, and as predators that could be shot on sight in the rest of the state.

The federal government has offered to turn management of the gray wolf over to the states once they all have plans in place that will assure a sustainable population of the species.

The lawsuit alleges that Norton and Williams committed four violations of the federal Administrative Procedures Act in rejecting Wyoming's wolf plan.

The state also claims that the agency is usurping Wyoming's sovereignty in violation of the U.S. Constitution in its implementation of the Endangered Species Act by "essentially forcing the Wyoming Legislature to become a regulatory arm of the federal government," Crank said.

He said the state has added a sixth claim for relief, alleging that Norton has acted in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

That claim was added to the lawsuit in June after the required 60 days had passed since the state officially notified Norton of an intent to sue under the act.

Capital bureau reporter Bill Luckett can be reached at (307) 632-1244 or bill.luckett@casperstartribune.net