WASHINGTON— The Trump administration is encouraging public land managers to bypass environmental reviews and public input to expand livestock grazing on national forests and other public lands, according to documents obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity.

The beef plan guidance, from the U.S. Agriculture Department and the Interior Department, promotes wider use of exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act that will allow these agencies to approve grazing permits and related activities on public lands without full environmental review or public comment.

“These new guidelines escalate the Trump administration’s assault on America’s public lands by sacrificing clean water, wildlife habitat, rivers and recreation to even more abuse by the livestock industry,” said Taylor McKinnon, Southwest director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It pulls every available lever to shield decisions that lead to feces-filled streams and denuded wildlife habitat from public accountability.”

The guidance urges public lands officials to ignore the compliance histories of livestock operators, including those with past violations, and encourages them to use categorical exclusions from review that were intended for unrelated activities, such as telecommunications projects and logging. It also weakens site-specific reviews by encouraging managers to reuse studies from “similar” areas, avoid new analyses entirely, and rely on decades-old assessments that do not reflect current conditions like prolonged drought in an increasingly arid West — even when reopening allotments that have been closed to livestock grazing for decades.

The industry-friendly directive follows industry criticism over the administration’s decision to open U.S. markets to Argentine beef imports. In September, the administration released a sprawling proposal to open vast areas of currently ungrazed public lands to new livestock grazing with limited public and environmental review. The proposal to massively expand grazing in the wild places where carnivores live, without requiring livestock operators to take basic steps to avoid conflict, would likely result in more dead wildlife, particularly predators such as vulnerable grizzlies and wolves.

“Opening vacant allotments would inflict massive damage to America’s public lands and sets the stage for new legal battles,” said McKinnon. “For years we’ve documented and litigated over cattle trashing streams in protected wildlife habitats, which have pushed endangered species toward extinction while federal agencies look the other way. This guidance encourages more damage to the public’s lands while placing more livestock in conflict with wolves, grizzlies and other carnivores. It’s a bad deal for Americans and for our cherished public lands and we’ll fight it with every tool we have.”