WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Interior Department announced Wednesday it intends to get rid of a 2024 Bureau of Land Management conservation rule, a move welcomed by Wyoming’s congressional delegation and condemned by environmentalists.
The regulation is officially called the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule but is better known as the Public Lands Rule. In the wake of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s announcement, the next step is a 60-day comment period on the proposed repeal.
Wyoming’s D.C. delegation of three Republicans issued a joint statement Wednesday characterizing the rule as yet another example of government overreach that fails to reflect the interests of rural westerners and the region's backbone industries such as energy and livestock.
“The Biden administration's Public Lands Rule was a direct hit to the West, threatening to shut down hundreds of thousands of acres of working land and hurt the livelihoods of hardworking Wyoming families who've depended on these lands for generations,” U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming said in the statement.
‘Left Idle’
Lummis’ estimate of “hundreds of thousands of acres” at stake is consistent with Burgum’s interpretation. Burgum said the rule stood to “block access” on such acreage from “energy and mineral production, timber management, grazing and recreation across the West.”
“The previous administration had treated conservation as ‘no use,’ meaning the land was to be left idle rather than authorizing legitimate uses of the land like grazing, energy development or recreation,” Burgum said.
The 42-page rule does not actually use the term “no use,” but Burgum is one of many who interpreted it that way, citing its sweeping scope involving micromanagement of ecosystems.
Among recreational, agricultural and industrial users alike, Burgum noted, there was “deep concern that the rule created regulatory uncertainty, reduced access to lands, and undermined the long-standing multiple-use mandate of the BLM as established by Congress.”
Hageman, Barrasso
U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming said in the joint statement that the proposed repeal would restore “common sense by returning management of the lands to the people who depend on them.”
“This is a huge win for Wyoming, securing grazing rights, bolstering energy production, and protecting rural economies from overreaching, absurd mandates,” said Hageman, who serves on the House Natural Resources Committee.
Added Sen. John Barrasso, U.S. Senate Majority Whip of Wyoming, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee: “The Biden Public Lands Rule was a direct attack on our way of life. The Trump administration is right to rescind this outrageous rule.”
Environmentalists’ Concerns
Environmental groups were quick to criticize Burgum’s move, calling it another step toward “giveaways” to energy industries.
“The rule was created to address a historic imbalance that leaves 80% of BLM land open to oil and gas development and vast areas open to mining, often at the expense of public access and conservation uses,” the National Parks Conservation Association said in a statement Wednesday.
“This rule protects park-adjacent landscapes from unchecked industrial energy development, and without it, parks like Grand Teton, Sequoia and Kings Canyon, and Dinosaur National Monument could see oil rigs on their horizons or mines polluting the rivers that sustain them,” the statement said.
“Our public lands need balance, not more giveaways,” it said.
The Natural Resources Defense Council said in a Wednesday statement that the rule “strengthens tools to address climate change, safeguard wildlife habitat and watersheds, incorporate Indigenous knowledge, and manage lands sustainably for future generations.”
Lummis’s Birthday
Burgum’s announcement happened to coincide with Lummis’s 71st birthday. The Senate Western Caucus, an informal yet influential group she chairs, took to the platform X to wish her all the best.
For Lummis, Burgum’s announcement was business as usual on matters involving the western caucus and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on which she serves.
Through legislation and administrative actions, Republicans in D.C. have upended the Biden administration’s energy and environmental agenda on multiple fronts. Burgum’s announcement Wednesday was just the latest salvo.
“Leftist Washington bureaucrats have worked overtime to lock up federal lands, block our energy production, hurt our timber industry, take away grazing rights, and shut out the ranchers, loggers, and energy workers who actually live in these communities and know how to take care of the land,” Lummis said in Wednesday’s joint statement with the delegation.
Sean Barry can be reached at sean@cowboystatedaily.com.
