The U.S. Department of Interior announced Wednesday it is proposing to rescind a controversial 2024 rule invoked under the Biden administration to put conservation on the same setting as other multi-uses on public lands.
While the move was blasted by conservation and environmental groups, it was lauded by the oil and gas industry.
“The Conservation and Landscape Health rule upended over a century of public lands management practices that strike a balance between providing the resources our nation needs with protecting the environment,” said Western Energy Alliance President Melissa Simpson.
“Whereas lands leased for oil and natural gas development are still available for numerous other uses such as recreation, land that would be set aside for conservation would restrict other productive uses,” she added.
The Independent Petroleum Association of America’s chief operating officer and executive vice president Dan Naatz agreed.
“Independent oil and natural gas producers have always opposed this misguided policy pushed by the Biden administration. The rule turned the long-standing policy of ‘multiple use’ of federal lands on its head and was another step toward non-use of public lands. It would have had devastating impacts for towns and communities throughout the Intermountain West and we strongly support Secretary (Doug) Burgum’s actions today."
A statement released by the Interior Department said the 2024 Public Lands Rule made conservation (i.e., no use) an official use of public lands, putting it on the same level as BLM’s other uses of public lands.
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, the agency said.
Additionally, the agency noted that stakeholders (including the energy industry, recreational users and agricultural producers) across the country expressed deep concern that the rule created regulatory uncertainty, reduced access to lands and undermined the long-standing multiple-use mandate of the Bureau of Land Management as established by Congress.
A betrayal of public lands?
But some environmental groups described the proposed recision as a betrayal of the public lands.
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance issued this statement:
“America’s wildest public lands face unprecedented threats from the Trump administration and its repeated decisions to prioritize fossil fuel development and extractive industry over clean water, wildlife habitat, and wild open spaces. This is especially the case in Utah, where Trump’s policies are having devastating consequences for the nation’s redrock wilderness,” said Steve Bloch, SUWA’s legal director.
SUWA did confirm, however, that no conservation leases had been issued under the Biden administration.
But the proposed scrapping of the rule, even though it had not been used, brought condemnation.
“Trump’s decision to scrap this rule is nothing short of a betrayal of America’s public lands. Our laws are clear that conservation is not optional. It’s a core part of multiple use,” said Randi Spivak, public lands policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
“For far too long, the Bureau of Land Management has tilted the scales toward drilling, mining and grazing. Gutting the Public Lands Rule will harm wildlife, clean water, and the communities that depend on healthy lands. The Trump administration’s move hands the keys of our shared heritage to extractive industries and tries to lock the rest of us out. But doing so is not lawful,” Spivak said.
The Natural Resources Defense Council said the repeal signals the administration’s intent to dismantle commonsense protections and hand public lands over to unchecked industrial development.
“Eliminating this rule is a dangerous step backward that puts endangered wildlife, rural communities, and clean drinking water at risk,” said Bobby McNaney, the group’s director of land conservation.
“The Bureau of Land Management is supposed to think about more than just mining, timber, and oil and gas development. By moving to dump the Public Lands Rule, it is trying to jettison a critical mechanism that helps to ensure that conservation is on equal footing.”