The Trump administration moved Wednesday to rescind a Biden-era rule that aimed to conserve land owned by the federal government, saying it prohibits valuable uses for the lands such as mining or drilling.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the rule hampered efforts to reduce America’s reliance on other nations for energy and rare minerals and other natural resources.
“The previous administration’s Public Lands Rule had the potential to block access to hundreds of thousands of acres of multiple-use land — preventing energy and mineral production, timber management, grazing and recreation across the West,” Mr. Burgum said.
Federal land may be leased to private entities, including to companies for mining, energy development or other activities. The Biden administration rule imposed last year expanded uses for federal land leases to include tribes, states and conservation groups, for the sole purpose of protecting that land.
The Trump Interior Department also said the Bureau of Land Management doesn’t have the statutory authority to prioritize conservation or no-use because it curtails energy development, recreation and other traditional land uses.
“Rescinding the rule restores BLM to its legal mandate and protects these economic drivers from restrictive land-use policies,” the department said in a statement. “The people who depend on public lands for their livelihoods have every incentive to conserve them and have been doing so for generations — no new rule was needed to force what is already a way of life.”
Environmental activists bristled at the announcement, saying the Trump administration is prioritizing energy exploration over climate concerns and wildlife.
“This [Biden-era] rule provided for healthy habitats and now it’s foolishly being yanked away in service of the ’Drill, baby, drill’ agenda,” Vera Smith, national forests and public lands director at Defenders of Wildlife, said in a statement.
The Interior Department will publish its proposal to rescind the public lands rule in Thursday’s Federal Register, starting a 60-day comment period that runs through Nov. 10.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.