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Public Lands Council among groups campaigning against Bureau of Land Management land rule

By Jody Heemstra Jun 22, 2023 | 6:00 AM

JUNE 22, 2023:

The Public Lands Council launched a grassroots campaign regarding the Bureau of Land Management’s Proposed rule titled “Conservation and Landscape Health.” The proposed rule creates significant concerns about changes to the BLM’s authority to manage the nation’s public lands and opens the door to removing livestock grazing from the range.

“The BLM must follow the law in managing our nation’s public lands for multiple uses and sustained benefits for all,” says PLC Executive Director Kaitlynn Glover. “Public lands grazing is an important conservation tool that protects these landscapes and is integral to national food security.”

PLC also wants to remind the bureau that grazing is an essential use of America’s public lands, and they hope all stakeholders will join the agency in sending a letter to the BLM’s leadership underscoring the responsibility to be good partners, especially since they’ve “fallen short,” according to Glover.

The agency stops accepting comments on July 5, 2023.

 

JUNE 16, 2023:

A proposed rule allowing the Bureau of Land Management to offer conservation-only leases was written without consulting people like farmers and ranchers who depend on the land.

In a letter to BLM director Tracy Stone-Manning, about 60 livestock groups say cattle and sheep producers have partnered with BLM in managing 245 million acres of federal land in the West for generations. However, BLM didn’t engage them in developing the proposed rule and gave no warning ahead of time that it was developing a rule.

“Individually, each of the components of the proposal would have required detailed discussion,” the letter says. “Together, the components demand BLM do the necessary work of engaging stakeholders to avoid conflict and develop lasting outcomes.”

BLM’s five public information sessions have done little to compensate for the agency’s lack of advanced discussions. Instead of engaging stakeholders where they operate, BLM is holding briefings in urban areas.

Additionally,

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican governors are pushing back against a proposal by the Biden administration to put conservation on equal footing with industry on vast government-owned lands.

On Thursday (June 15, 2023), South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem testified before the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources in favor of a bill that would require the Bureau of Land Management to withdraw the proposal, saying it would cause “deep devastation.”

The White House’s plan would allow conservationists and others to lease federally owned land to restore it, much the same way oil companies buy leases to drill and ranchers pay to graze cattle. Leases also could be bought on behalf of companies such as oil drillers who want to offset damage to public land by restoring acreage elsewhere.

The top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, said the proposal was “long overdue,” noting that conservation historically “has taken a back seat to all other uses.”

Noem, however, was joined in Washington by Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon in decrying the measure. One day earlier they joined the Republican governors of Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah in penning a letter urging the bureau to withdraw the drafted rule.

Agriculture industry representatives are blasting it as a backdoor way to exclude mining, energy development and agriculture. Biden administration officials, however, have sought to offer reassurances.

Tracy Stone-Manning, director of the Bureau of Land Management, previously told The Associated that the proposed changes would make conservation an “equal” to grazing, drilling and other uses while not interfering with them.

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