This week, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced changes to regulations for roughly one-tenth of the public land that it oversees — approximately 245 million acres. According to a BLM press release, the new changes will “improve the health and resilience of public lands in the face of a changing climate; conserve important wildlife habitat and intact landscapes; facilitate responsible development; and better recognize unique cultural and natural resources on public lands.”
In addition to using public lands for oil and gas exploration, mining, and cattle grazing, the new rule supposedly puts conservation, recreation, and renewable-energy development on what The Washington Post calls an “equal footing” with those other concerns.
Climate zealots are hailing the development as a “seismic shift” in public property management.
“America’s public lands are our national treasures and need to be managed and made resilient for future generations of Americans,” said John Podesta, John Kerry’s replacement as “Climate Czar.” “Today’s final rule from the Department of the Interior is a huge win for ensuring balance on our public lands, helping them withstand the challenges of climate change and environmental threats like invasive species, and making sure they continue to provide services to the American people for decades to come.”
It’s all “science based” and all about the health of the land, according the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.
“The Interior Department takes seriously our role in helping bolster landscape resilience in the face of worsening climate impacts,” Haaland said. “Today’s final rule helps restore balance to our public lands as we continue using the best-available science to restore habitats, guide strategic and responsible development, and sustain our public lands for generations to come,”
Others worry, with good reason, that the new rule is nothing but a federal land grab. Representative John Curtis (R-Utah) worries that the new rule will have a deleterious effect on his state’s citizens.
“The BLM’s proposed rule would undermine the livelihoods of Utah’s farmers, ranchers, recreation businesses, and more,” Curtis said. “In a state that has so much natural beauty to share, this rule attempts to lock up those precious lands that should be open and accessible to the public.”
Washington Republican Dan Newhouse questions whether the federal government is truly the best option for managing the land.
“In the West, we know locking up lands with preservationist designations does not automatically guarantee healthy landscapes. In fact, the opposite is often the case,” he stated. “Farmers and ranchers are the best stewards of the land, not bureaucrats in Washington who seek to hamper our land managers’ ability to conserve the land they rely on for their livelihoods. The BLM has time and again shown their aim is to drastically reduce, or even eliminate, grazing on public lands, and this proposed rule is the latest iteration of this effort.”
But the Biden administration insists that the new rule is all about preserving the land for future generations.
“The Interior Department is ensuring our public lands are managed with an eye to future generations,” said Brenda Mallory, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “These reforms will help deliver cleaner water, healthier lands, abundant wildlife, and more recreation opportunities for all of us.”
Climate realist Steve Milloy pointed out how closely the proposed new rule mirrors the UN’s Agenda 21/30.
“They call it land ‘conservation,’ but really mean land ‘confiscation,'” Milloy posted on X. “The Biden regime is trying to implement the UN plan formerly called #Agenda21 and now called the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” — i.e., confiscating land and putting it … off limits to development.”
And, once again, bureaucrats in alphabet agencies are making policy rather than lawmakers.
“The Bureau of Land Management’s proposed rule ignores Congressional input as well as those of sportsmen and Tribes, whose access to certain federal lands could be restricted if the rule goes into effect,” said Representative Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho).
Fulcher, Newhouse, and Curtis have introduced legislation, H.R. 3397, which would force the BLM to withdraw the frightening new rule, since it would “hinder access to public lands for energy and critical mineral development, grazing, forest management, and recreation.”
