Last year, the Biden administration finalized a new rule for the Bureau of Land Management, putting conservation on the same level as other uses, like grazing, mining, and oil and gas development.
Now, the Trump administration says it wants to rescind the landmark Conservation and Landscape Health Rule.
The Public Lands Rule, as it’s colloquially known, gave land managers new tools for conservation on BLM lands, including a program allowing entities to lease degraded land for restoration and for efforts to reconnect fragmented landscapes.
Because the rule was created using a formal rulemaking process, over multiple years with several opportunities for public engagement and feedback, conservation advocates say the rule will need to be undone the same way.
Steve Bloch, with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said it’s not yet clear how the administration will go about rescinding the rule, but there’s a chance they could try to move forward without public engagement, via executive or secretarial order.
“That’s not how the process works,” he said. “If they go down that path, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance—and other nonprofits, I’m sure—will challenge that decision.”
He said it’s part of a trend from the Trump administration, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, of ignoring conservation in favor of fossil fuel extraction.
“The president has released—and Secretary Burgum has followed suit—orders that really put an extreme emphasis on fossil fuel development,” he said. “Coal and oil and gas, really de-emphasizing renewables for the most part.”
The rule has drawn criticism from mostly Republicans, as well as the fossil fuels industry.
Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-Utah) introduced a bill in February, cosponsored by Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) and Jeff Hurd (R-Colo.), to withdraw the Public Lands Rule altogether. Utah and Wyoming also sued the BLM, alleging that the agency did not follow the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, when drafting the rule.
A number of industry groups filed a lawsuit against the BLM over the Public Lands rule, including the American Exploration & Mining Association, American Petroleum Institute, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and the Western Energy Alliance.
Kathleen Sgamma, formerly the president of the Western Energy Alliance, was President Trump’s pick to lead the BLM before she withdrew her nomination.
“Conservation is a goal. It is not a use,” she said during a House Natural Resources Committee hearing in June 2023.
Bloch said rescinding the rule via executive or secretarial order would be part of a trend of public lands decisions that lack transparency.
“A lot of them are focused on minerals or national monuments or monies that are generated from certain activities on federal land,” he said. “And then we have no idea where that's going. We don't get to see the final reports. We don’t get to see how the final report might be tied into some decision.”
Bloch said advocates are anticipating actions around western national monuments, like Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante in Utah, as well as areas where there are mineral withdrawals, like the Thompson Divide in western Colorado, and Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. A mineral withdrawal essentially means that all extractive activities are paused on that landscape, including mining and oil and gas drilling.
Public lands for housing?
In another threat to federal public lands, Bloch and other advocates point out that the Trump administration has floated the idea of selling federal public lands for a variety of reasons, including balancing the federal budget, and developing more affordable housing.
But conservation advocates say these proposals don’t actually address the problems they claim to solve.
One proposal would allow the sale of Bureau of Land Management land to build affordable housing within ten miles of towns that have populations of 5,000 or more. This would mainly impact cities and towns in the west, where the BLM oversees 245 million acres of land. Officials estimate that this proposal would impact about 400,000 acres.
Aaron Kindle, the director of sporting advocacy for the National Wildlife Foundation, said this is not smart development, and that it may cost more than it saves.
“BLM lands are not in the middle of cities where you need affordable housing that are connected to infrastructure,” he said. “Folks who would utilize affordable housing may need public transportation.”
“Because if there's not already sewage and power and other services there, then the cost would outweigh the benefits,” he said. “ And then (there’s) emergency services, fire, and police, and things like that. Now they have a new place to service, so there's costs that are associated with that.”
In addition, the Trump administration has frozen funding for affordable housing, according to reports from the Associated Press.
In a statement, conservation advocacy group Center for Western Priorities also decried the proposal, calling it a recipe for more “suburban sprawl.”
“The president wants to sell off the lands that are most accessible to Westerners for hiking, hunting, and camping and turn them into miles of McMansions that stretch across our deserts and mountains,” wrote Deputy Director Aaron Weiss. “Building ten miles out from small towns is not a recipe for smart growth or affordable housing. It’s just a giveaway to billionaire developers at the expense of America’s parks, trails, and wildlife.”
Kindle said aside from the lack of a real plan to address affordable housing, these kinds of proposals will put pressure on local wildlife populations.
“That's often a lot of winter range for ungulates,” he said. “So you're talking about interrupting migration pathways. You're talking about stressing wildlife that's already got a lot of development pressure.”
According to Colorado College’s Conservation in the West poll, 82% of voters across seven western states are opposed to selling federal public lands for housing development. In Colorado, that number is 87%. In Utah, it’s 81%. 86% of Wyoming respondents said they were opposed.
Copyright 2025 Rocky Mountain Community Radio. This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including Aspen Public Radio.
