The Bureau of Land Management recently proposed a new rule to FLPMA to prioritize conservation and landscape health on BLM managed lands. This rule proposes prioritizing conservation on BLM land through a new scheme of selling “conservation leases.” This is a backdoor attempt to sell out our public land to the highest bidder to achieve the goals of the 30×30 agenda to lock up our public lands. The highest bidder for these leases will likely be well-funded environmental groups who will use the leases to restrict all other uses within the leased area such as recreation, mining and grazing.

BRC believes this rule needs to be withdrawn, and we are encouraging all our members and allies to support us in asking the BLM to withdraw this rule.

Although the official deadline for public comments have passed, you can still encourage this legislation to move forward to continue to build strong opposition to this rule. Commenting before the deadline gives you legal standing with the BLM but these bills have no deadline.

We were encouraged to learn that opposition to this rule is building in the U.S. Senate. Senator John Barrasso is sponsoring legislation which would require the director of the BLM to withdraw proposed rule. Widespread disapproval of this rule will go a long way in getting this legislation passed to prevent the rule from going into effect. There is also another bill that includes the same language to #withdraw the rule. The current co-sponsors of these Senate bills are:

UPDATE: The House of Representatives also has the same legislation sponsored by Rep. John Curtis. The following representatives are co-sponsors of the legislation:

If your senator or representative is listed, your should thank them for defending our public lands. If your senator and or representative is not listed please encourage them to become a cosponsor of this legislation and stand up for the public’s right to access public lands!

Make your voice heard!