The Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are back at it again. This time, they are using proposed revisions to their Rock Springs land-use plan in Wyoming to defy Congress and local stakeholders, and to write farming, oil and gas development, mining, ranching, recreation, and even renewable energy out of the law and out of the Rock Springs, Wyoming, area. Again, they are overstepping their authority, ignoring state and local stakeholders, and putting the livelihoods of entire industries in jeopardy, by proposing to take an “anti-use” approach to land management in this huge part of southwest Wyoming, roughly the size of Connecticut.
Every so often, BLM must revise its overarching priorities for different planning areas, including addressing questions such as whether BLM should make more or fewer (or the same amount) of lands available for oil and gas development in a planning area, etc. The revisions offer BLM an opportunity to make sure that it is addressing new information and keeping a balanced approach to Congress’s requirement that BLM take a “multiple use” approach to land management.
It has been decades since the Rock Springs planning area has had any revisions, and BLM decided it needed to draft a new plan for the Rock Springs area.
However, there are issues with BLM’s new proposed plan for Rock Springs. The first issue is that BLM’s new proposed plan significantly limits the access and use of natural resource companies, ranchers, and recreational users of the land, and thus violates the multiple use mandate in the FLPMA. Second, BLM has not consulted the Wyoming state government within the last three years, which disregards its legal requirement to consult with local government and agencies Third, BLM’s announced course of action relies on outdated information and violates the National Environmental Policy Act, because it is not a true analysis of competing alternatives. And fourth, the proposed revisions to the Rock Springs Plan would also limit private activities on private lands, which again is in violation of the current laws. By law, BLM must consult with the state government and its relevant state agencies before making any revisions to the planning area. Yet the Wyoming state government has continued to have their authority utterly ignored by BLM for the last three years, who then decided to propose this new plan without consulting them.
The proposed course of action would significantly restrict companies in the resource extraction industry including oil and gas, mining and trona extraction (soda ash refinement which then turns into baking soda), and many others from using public land. Singling out a specific issue, Wyoming is home to the largest trona deposit in the world, and trona is the number one international export for Wyoming’s economy. If BLM’s new plan goes into effect, the restrictions on trona and other resources would be devastating to Wyoming’s economy. Wyoming would not be the only one impacted, the restrictions by BLM would be felt by the worldwide and national economy that relies on its trona production. BLM should not be able to ignore the law and potentially wreck an entire state’s economy without consulting that state’s government.
Just as troubling is that BLM’s new plan would designate more than 1.6 million acres (an area the size of Delaware) as Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC). These ACEC designations tend to be long lasting, and prohibit recreational use of the land to designated trails only. This would be a major reduction in areas that allow for recreational use, and it would completely write off many other uses in this huge swath of the State.
BLM’s proposal to only allow pristine preservation of this area—that is, to pursue an “anti-use” agenda—violates the multiple use mandate of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA). What’s more, the proposal relies on old, stale information in its analyses, and thus violates the National Environmental Policy Act as it is not a true analysis of competing alternatives, including the more popular status quo. BLM has already made up its mind about which alternative it prefers, never mind what that will do to local communities, and it has pre-determined a path toward Biden’s “30 by 30” policy goal, and not the one that is best for the state of Wyoming, or that adheres to Congress’s requirements.
Mountain States has filed a public comment objecting to this terrible proposal. Our comments have the support of 32 Wyoming legislators who joined us to help take a stand in protecting their state from the overreaching authority of BLM. In our comments MSLF is advocating that BLM should stop its current revisions to the plan as they are unlawful and unreasonable. Instead, BLM needs to start from scratch, this time with meaningful communication with the local stakeholders and the businesses who will be harmed.
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What’s at Stake?
If BLM’s new proposed plan gets put into action, it would set a dangerous precedent that federal agencies can ignore the law and not communicate with local stakeholders, including local elected officials, when it comes to developing land-use plans. It would also allow for federal agencies to be able to enact plans that will destroy a state’s economy without even consulting the people who would suffer. This puts entire industries, like the trona extraction, ranching, and oil and gas industries in jeopardy, as they would no longer have the law to protect them, since BLM thinks it is no longer accountable to the law.
Another implication this has for Americans is that BLM could continually overstep the limits on its authority under FLPMA. This same act mandates that public lands must be available for sustained yield and multiple purpose use. It is public land that must be available for public uses. If the BLM is allowed to proceed with its plan, it would set a precedent that would allow BLM to ignore the laws put in place, and to do as it wishes with future land use plans. BLM could also have a predetermined preferred alternative to achieve its agenda, instead of considering all reasonable possible alternatives that will likely be better for a state’s economy.
Lastly, BLM would also be able to weaponize the use of ACECs as an excuse for why it is enacting such drastic changes to planning areas. Theoretically, BLM could simply claim that an area of land is an ACEC, and therefore the public use of that land can be restricted in the name of vague notions of conservation.
Mountain States is here to hold the Department of the Interior and BLM responsible for their actions. BLM seems to think its proposed course of action will have no consequences, but MSLF is here to protect the interests and rights of the public, including farmers, those in the extractive resource industries, and ranchers, along with states and localities who know the most about proper land use management.
