BLM Seeks to Deemphasize Conservation on Public Lands

The Trump administration is seeking to rescind a rule that dictates public land use, removing an emphasis on conservation to support “responsible energy development,” ranching, grazing, timber production and recreation.

“The previous administration’s Public Lands Rule had the potential to block access to hundreds of thousands of acres of multiple-use land—preventing energy and mineral production, timber management, grazing and recreation across the West,” said Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum in a recent press release on the proposed rescission. “The most effective caretakers of our federal lands are those whose livelihoods rely on its well-being. Overturning this rule protects our American way of life and gives our communities a voice in the land that they depend on.”

The Public Lands Rule aimed to put conservation on equal footing with other types of land use, like livestock grazing, oil and gas drilling, mining on U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands and recreation. “As pressure on our public lands continues to grow, the proposed Public Lands Rule provides a path for the BLM to better focus on the health of the landscape, ensuring that our decisions leave our public lands as good or better off than we found them,” said Biden administration-era BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning in 2023 when the Public Lands Rule was first proposed. The rule was intended to protect the most intact and functional landscapes and restore degraded habitat.