The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wants to lock up public land without hearing from those barred from critical grazing grounds.
On Monday, Wyoming lawmakers sent a letter to BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning demanding agency leadership recalibrate its schedule for a tour of western states to present a sweeping proposal for “conservation leasing.” The proposed framework threatens to undermine the agency’s “multiple use mandate” by elevating conservation above grazing, recreation, and development, threatening ranchers’ access to public lands.
“Every public-lands state in the West will be gravely impacted if this proposed rule is finalized,” wrote Wyoming’s three-member congressional delegation. “Yet it was announced without consulting many of the most important stakeholders; families, farmers and ranchers, tribes, and others throughout Wyoming and the Western states whose lives and livelihood are intertwined with these lands.”
Congress required the BLM to abide by the long-standing multiple-use doctrine with the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA). The law stipulates public lands must be available to “best meet the present and future needs of the people,” which means allowing lands to be used for a variety of purposes, from livestock grazing to resource development. Conservation leases outlined by the BLM’s new Public Lands Rule would strip access to public lands locked off from multiple uses.
Republican representatives from Wyoming including Harriet Hageman and Sens. Cynthia Lummis and John Barrasso, condemned the BLM effort to “side-step Congress to re-define BLM’s multiple-use mandate.”
“It would empower radical environmentalist groups to restrict public-access to
