The Public Lands Rule has been rescinded. The rule, first proposed in 2023, would have complicated the balanced partnership between federal agencies and all multiple uses on those public lands. In 2024, the Bureau of Land Management made the rule worse by allowing conservation to rise above the level of all other multiple uses, essentially locking public lands from use. The lands ripe for this brand of conservation would have been determined by a rather subjective set of criteria and rather than applying a balanced set of uses to public lands, conservation would have been the sole use. This Biden-era rule flew in the face of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA) that established a regulatory system for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to manage the lands. The rule was created without Congressional direction or consent.
While some decry that this is a win only for the greedy ranchers paying pennies on the dollar for BLM leases, it is a win for those who believe in keeping public lands in public hands.
A neighbor who is a public lands hunter visited with me last week and he told me there is no political party for the public lands hunters. He said one party is trying to take his guns, and the other is trying to take his access. It’s an interesting perspective and solidifies the importance of this rescinding, which will continue to ensure access.
Though only one of the users, livestock grazing on public lands in the West is significant and an important part of maintaining a protein supply chain. About half of the cattle in the West and nearly 60% of the sheep in the West graze public lands and they do so in tandem with other uses. When this rule was initially proposed and released for comment, the opposing comments didn’t only come from grazing users. The other users who would have been locked out of lands by the rule also lodged their opposition, including energy interests, timber interests, recreation users, and conservation groups. A number of Western states also filed litigation, demonstrating how egregious the rule truly was…