The Department of the Interior is proposing to rescind the 2024 Public Lands Rule, which elevated conservation to equal footing with other land uses like grazing, energy development, and recreation. The move aligns with Secretary Doug Burgumโs commitment to restoring multiple-use access, empowering local decision-making, and supporting economic activities on public lands. Critics of the rule argued it created regulatory uncertainty and restricted traditional land uses. Rolling it back would return authority to states, counties, and tribes, reduce barriers to development, and reinforce the Bureau of Land Managementโs original mandate. The DOI writes:
The Department of the Interior is proposing to rescind the Bureau of Land Managementโs Public Lands Rule, aligning with Secretary Doug Burgumโs commitment to restoring balance in federal land management by prioritizing multiple-use access, empowering local decision-making and supporting responsible energy development, ranching, grazing, timber production and recreation across Americaโs public lands.
The 2024 Public Lands Rule, formally known as the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule, made conservation (i.e., no use) an official use of public lands, putting it on the same level as BLMโs other uses of public lands. The previous administration had treated conservation as โno use,โ meaning the land was to be left idle rather than authorizing legitimate uses of the land like grazing, energy development or recreation. However, stakeholders, including the energy industry, recreational users and agricultural producers, across the country expressed deep concern that the rule created regulatory uncertainty, reduced access to lands, and undermined the long-standing multiple-use mandate of the BLM as established by Congress. Now, the BLM proposes to rescind this rule in full.
โThe previous administrationโs Public Lands Rule had the potential to block access to hundreds of thousands of acres of multiple-use land โ preventing energy and mineral production, timber management, grazing and recreation across the West,โย said Secretary Doug Burgum.ย โThe most effective caretakers of our federal lands are those whose livelihoods rely on its well-being. Overturning this rule protects our American way of life and gives our communities a voice in the land that they depend on.โ
The Public Lands Rule exceeded the BLMโs statutory authority by placing an outsized priority on conservation or no-use at the expense of multiple-use access, threatening to curtail grazing, energy development, recreation and other traditional land uses. Many rural communities depend on public lands for livelihoods tied to agriculture, mining and energy production. Rescinding the rule restores BLM to its legal mandate and protects these economic drivers from restrictive land-use policies. ย The people who depend on public lands for their livelihoods have every incentive to conserve them and have been doing so for generationsโno new rule was needed to force what is already a way of life.
By proposing to roll back the Public Lands Rule, Interior is committed to no longer sidelining local voices by returning more authority back to states, counties and tribes who are directly impacted by the management of public lands. Additionally, rescinding the rule eliminates uncertainty for industry stakeholders concerning potential litigation risks and permitting delays. Consistent with Secretaryโs Order 3418, โUnleashing American Energy,โ the rescission of the Public Lands Rule will eliminate unnecessary barriers to energy development and support the multiple-use mandate of the BLM by not prioritizing conservation over all other uses.
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