North Dakota has formally asked a federal judge to throw out a Minnesota lawsuit that challenges the hunting preferences North Dakota grants to its resident hunters.

A provision included in a federal spending bill, newly signed by President Bush, renounces Congress' interest in regulating hunting and fishing under the U.S. Constitution's commerce clause, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said in a court filing Thursday.

"I think that the court will … quickly determine that all of the basis for Minnesota's lawsuit has now been obliterated by the action of the Congress," Stenehjem said Thursday. "That should be the very end of this lawsuit."

Leslie Sandberg, a spokeswoman for Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch, said the state will respond to North Dakota's latest request. Both Minnesota and North Dakota have filed earlier requests with U.S. District Judge Dan Hovland, asking him to rule in their favor in the case.

North Dakota has several restrictions on out-of-state hunters. Visiting duck hunters are not allowed to hunt during the first week of North Dakota's season, and are limited in where they may hunt, unless they buy a more expensive hunting license.

Nonresident hunters are also barred from land controlled by the state Game and Fish Department during the first week of pheasant season.

Hatch has argued that North Dakota's rules amount to restrictions on interstate commerce that are prohibited by the U.S. Constitution.

Stenehjem said Congress has authority to regulate business between states, or may allow states to handle the job. The new federal law leaves hunting and fishing regulation within states in the hands of the states themselves, he said.

"By enacting (the federal law), however, Congress has … expressly renounced any federal interest under the commerce clause in regulating hunting and fishing," says North Dakota's court filing, written by Stenehjem and Dean Haas, an assistant attorney general.