12 Days of Legal Updates: Our Fight to Reverse Decades of Agency Regulatory Abuse

Over the past year, while we challenged restrictive travel plans and national monuments in court, another equally important battle was unfolding behind the scenes, one fought not on trails or in courtrooms, but in the complex world of federal rulemaking. For the BlueRibbon Coalition, defending access has never been limited to opposing individual closures. It has also meant confronting the deeper regulatory structures that allow those closures to take root. And in 2024 and 2025, that work took center stage.

Throughout the year, we submitted numerous administrative petitions, each focused on correcting regulatory frameworks that had drifted far from serving the public. For decades, we’ve watched as certain rules were used to justify sweeping reductions in motorized access. These petitions were our effort to restore balance, accountability, and fairness to the system. Many of these regulations were also put in place during an era where courts gave substantial deference to agencies to create rules and regulations. The Supreme Court is rolling back these precedents, which means we have a once in a generation opportunity to ensure that the new system that follows is friendlier to public land access.

One of our primary petitions called for the rescission of the US Forest Service 2005 Travel Management Rule, the regulation that has long guided how the Forest Service designates routes across vast landscapes. Over time, this rule has become the backbone of closure-driven decision-making, giving land managers tools that were often wielded in ways that marginalized historic use and limited meaningful public participation. We argued that the rule no longer reflected the realities of modern recreation or Congress’s growing recognition that access must be protected, not restricted by default.

At the same time, we petitioned for the rescission of the Department of Interior’s infamous “minimization criteria”, found at 43 C.F.R. § 8342.1. This regulation is frequently cited to justify closing routes for reasons that are vague, inconsistently applied, or untethered from clear statutory authority. This regulation had become a catch-all justification for eliminating access, and we believe it is time to rethink whether these minimization criteria serve the public at all.

We also filed a petition requesting reforms to 43 C.F.R. § 2930, which governs permitting for recreational users. Our goal was straightforward: ensure that ordinary people (families, small creators, weekend explorers) are not burdened by unnecessary fees, unclear requirements, or complex permitting systems that create barriers instead of opportunities. We urged the agencies to revise or rescind these rules so that public lands remain accessible to the public, not just to those with legal teams or deep pockets.

In addition to these formal requests for larger reforms, that Department of Interior requested public feedback for additional regulatory rollbacks, and we joined many of you in calling for rollbacks and reforms of dozens of additional regulations. We expect the Administration to respond to these requests through 2026.

The National Park Service also called for feedback in October, and our community provided the most substantive feedback of any group with requests to improve visitor services and concessions at Lake Powell. We petitioned for more access to Valles Caldera National Preserve, Redwood National Park, Yellowstone, and several other parks.

Taken together, these petitions represent a year of deep, proactive work. These efforts are aimed not only at fixing individual decisions, but at changing the regulatory environment that shapes every decision to come. While these processes are slow and often technical, their impact can be profound. They determine how future travel plans will be written, how access will be evaluated, and how agencies will balance conservation with the public’s right to explore our public lands.

As these petitions move forward, we remain committed to seeing them through. Reforming outdated rules is not glamorous, and these reforms rarely draw the attention that court victories do. However, we believe if the agencies act on our recommendations that we will reduce the need for future lawsuits. This is essential work designed for the current moment to ensure public lands stay truly public and open to the generations that will come after us. And as always, we will continue pushing, advocating, and standing firm for the rights of Americans to access, enjoy, and experience the great outdoors.