More than a dozen Republican senators are demanding the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) reconsider its proposed Public Lands Rule unveiled in March. If implemented, the new rules threaten to undermine “multiple use” land requirements and lock up taxpayer property from grazing or development.
On Thursday, the coalition of 16 GOP lawmakers, all representing states west of the Mississippi River, penned a letter to BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning to warn about the consequences of the far-reaching proposal.
“The proposal creates a framework for ‘conservation leases’ without authorization from Congress,” the senators wrote. “The proposal specifically notes that ‘BLM shall not authorize any other uses of the leased land’ that it determines are ‘inconsistent’ with this new framework.”
The BLM proposal unilaterally jeopardizes the multiple use mandate established by Congress in the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA). The long-standing doctrine stipulates public lands must be available to “best meet the needs of the people,” via a variety of purposes from recreation to timber harvesting.
The new agency regulations, lawmakers note, threaten to interrupt “the successful balance of other responsible uses from hunting and grazing, to energy development and recreation.”
The BLM manages 245 million acres of public property, more than 90 percent of which lies in Western states. Although the proposed Public Lands Rule would predominantly affect rural residents who use federal land, the BLM announced in-person public hearings on the new rules in urban centers such as Denver, Reno, and Albuquerque. Not one state with a
