{"id":790684,"date":"2026-05-12T08:46:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T08:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/790684\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T08:46:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T08:46:25","slug":"interior-department-cancels-conservation-rule-on-public-lands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/790684\/","title":{"rendered":"Interior Department cancels conservation rule on public lands"},"content":{"rendered":"

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) \u2014 The Interior Department is canceling a rule that put conservation on equal footing with development<\/a>, as President Donald Trump\u2019s administration eases restrictions<\/a> on industries and seeks to boost drilling, logging, mining and grazing on taxpayer-owned land.<\/p>\n

The 2024 rule adopted under former President Joe Biden was meant to refocus the Interior Department\u2019s Bureau of Land Management, which oversees about 10% of land in the U.S. It allowed public property to be leased for restoration in the same way that oil companies lease land for drilling.<\/p>\n

But Interior Secretary Doug Burgum<\/a> has said the rule could have blocked access to hundreds of thousands of acres (hectares) of land \u2014 preventing energy and timber production and hurting ranchers who graze on public lands. <\/p>\n

Supporters argued that conservation had long been a secondary consideration at the land bureau, neglecting its mission under the 1976 Federal Lands Policy Management Act. While the bureau previously issued leases for conservation purposes in limited cases, it never had a dedicated program prior to the Biden administration.<\/p>\n

Bobby McEnaney with the Natural Resources Defense Council said repealing the rule \u201dmeans less protection for the clean drinking water, less protection for endangered wildlife that depend on healthy habitat, and less accountability when corporations leave these landscapes damaged and degraded.\u201d<\/p>\n

In documents released Monday, administration officials said it exceeded the land bureau\u2019s authority for outside parties to be allowed to obtain conservation leases. <\/p>\n

Industry groups and their Republican allies in Congress strongly opposed the rule<\/a> and had lobbied to repeal it. They said the change under Biden violated the \u201cmultiple use\u201d mandate for Interior Department lands by catapulting the \u201cnon-use\u201d of federal lands \u2014 meaning restoration leases \u2014 to a position of prominence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis action provides greater clarity and predictability for independent oil and natural gas producers\u2014many of whom rely on consistent permitting and leasing processes to operate efficiently and invest in domestic energy supply,\u201d Dan Naatz with the Independent Petroleum Association of America said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The federal government\u2019s vast land holdings are concentrated in Western states including Alaska, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Since taking office, Trump has pursued a flurry of actions<\/a> aimed at boosting fossil fuel production from those taxpayer-owned sites. The Republican administration also has sought to sideline some renewable energy projects, claiming they were unfairly subsidized under Biden.<\/p>\n

The repeal is effective 30 days after it is published in the Federal Register, which was scheduled for Tuesday.<\/p>\n

It comes after Republicans in Congress in recent months canceled land management plans adopted in the closing days of Biden\u2019s administration that restricted development<\/a> in large areas of Alaska, Montana and North Dakota. <\/p>\n

In addition to its surface land holdings, the Bureau of Land Management regulates publicly owned underground mineral reserves \u2014 such as coal for power plants and lithium for renewable energy \u2014 across more than 1 million square miles (2.5 million square kilometers). The bureau has a history of industry-friendly policies and for more than a century has sold grazing permits and oil and gas leases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) \u2014 The Interior Department is canceling a rule that put conservation on equal footing with…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":790685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[13671,934,322891,103134,64,276,10109,10106,322892,69,98171,10102,782,57,82,13668,29623,617,11198,50,11199,11290,53197,80,618,104312,61,67,370,132,68,436,424,13669,1669],"class_list":{"0":"post-790684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-ak-state-wire","10":"tag-alaska","11":"tag-bobby-mcenaney","12":"tag-bureau-of-land-management","13":"tag-business","14":"tag-california","15":"tag-climate","16":"tag-climate-and-environment","17":"tag-dan-naatz","18":"tag-donald-trump","19":"tag-doug-burgum","20":"tag-energy-industry","21":"tag-environmental-conservation","22":"tag-general-news","23":"tag-joe-biden","24":"tag-montana","25":"tag-mt-state-wire","26":"tag-nevada","27":"tag-new-mexico","28":"tag-news","29":"tag-nm-state-wire","30":"tag-nv-state-wire","31":"tag-oil-and-gas-industry","32":"tag-politics","33":"tag-taxes","34":"tag-u-s-department-of-the-interior","35":"tag-u-s-news","36":"tag-united-states","37":"tag-united-states-government","38":"tag-unitedstates","39":"tag-us","40":"tag-ut-state-wire","41":"tag-utah","42":"tag-wy-state-wire","43":"tag-wyoming"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}