WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity filed official opposition today to the Trump administration’s move to scrap the Public Lands Rule. Trump’s move would continue to prioritize extraction over public lands conservation.
The 2024 rule was designed to put conservation, ecosystem restoration and community access to public lands on equal footing with extractive uses like mining, drilling and grazing.
“Trump’s absurd claim that conservation isn’t a valid use of public lands would be laughable if it didn’t threaten America with such disastrous consequences,” said Randi Spivak, public land policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "The Public Lands Rule was designed to bring some balance to our shared heritage after decades of the lands being trashed by mining, drilling and exploitation. Trump’s move to repeal the rule will harm our wildlife, pollute our water, and sacrifice plain old public enjoyment of beautiful wild places on the altar of corporate profit."
More than 50 years ago Congress charged the Bureau of Land Management with a multiple-use mission to balance recreation, watersheds, wildlife and other core values so America’s public lands could serve both present and future generations without degrading their productivity or habitats.
In recent decades the BLM’s on-the-ground management of the 245 million acres it oversees had prioritized extractive uses, opening 81% of lands to oil and gas extraction and more than 60% to livestock grazing. Only 24% of BLM lands are managed explicitly to conserve their natural and cultural resources.
Until 2024 the BLM had regulations guiding mining, grazing, logging, energy and other activities authorized on public lands but lacked the equivalent for managing lands for conservation. The Public Lands Rule addressed that regulatory gap by defining conservation as a multiple use alongside extractive and consumptive uses and providing a framework and tools to advance conservation on public lands.
Under the rule, which is now in effect, the BLM is required to identify, evaluate and protect “areas of critical environmental concern,” apply modern science on ecosystem resilience and climate change, and shift away from a default “multiple use” model that most often prioritizes drilling, mining and grazing. Now this progress is under threat.
The Public Lands Rule received overwhelming support from the American people, with 92% of all public comments filed during its development supportive of the measure.
The BLM oversees more land than any other federal agency. From deserts and rivers to forests and wetlands, these irreplaceable public lands provide habitat for 2,700 sensitive wildlife species. More than 300 of those are threatened or endangered animals or plants, including California condors, black-footed ferrets, northern spotted owls and southwestern willow flycatchers. Populations are declining for most of the imperiled species dependent on public lands.
