The Biden administration failed to weigh environmental harms in its recently finalized Public Lands Rule, Utah and Wyoming officials argued in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
The two states, with large amounts of federally managed lands, argued that the Interior Department should have seriously weighed the damages as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Instead, the agency categorically and improperly excluded the rule from scrutiny, according to the lawsuit.
“Stakeholders of all stripes begged BLM to take the ‘close examination’ required by NEPA before pushing for a rule that could harm the environment,” says the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Utah. The rule “reviews existing regulations and creates new land management tools not contemplated or authorized” by Congress.
The Public Lands Rule, finalized in April by the Bureau of Land Management, added conservation as a “use” of public lands on par with any other use permitted under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976.
The rule governs approximately 245 million acres of federal lands, primarily in the West, and informs the bureau’s approach to ecosystem protection, mining, grazing, logging, and oil and gas leasing throughout the region.
BLM officials said it was necessary to restore lands devastated by invasive species, extreme wildfires, prolonged droughts and wildlife habitat fragmentation. The Biden administration’s climate agenda calls for conserving 30% of US land by 2030.
But Western states and Republican politicians fear that conservation will limit other activities.
Republicans pressed BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning about the rule during a Capitol hearing last week, with one senator claiming the bureau “manages these lands like a museum,” where visitors can look but not tap.
Stone-Manning told lawmakers that conservation could coexist with other uses of public lands, such as allowing the construction of a transmission line through conserved lands and the restoration of pastures in grazing areas. Conservation cannot be the exclusive use of land, she said.
The lawsuit noted concerns both states raised with BLM last year during the rulemaking process.
The Utah Department of Natural Resources said the rule would jeopardize mature, old-growth forests, would not allow for the type of active management most needed to support landscape health and would make restoration more difficult to achieve to the detriment of the environment. of Utah, according to the lawsuit.
The Wyoming County Commissioners Association said the rule represents a “substantial departure from past interpretations of BLM responsibilities” and “will directly affect the actual management of public lands” that could involve greater sage-grouse habitat.
BLM cannot avoid making an environmental impact statement by relying on a categorical exclusion, which is used for projects that are considered low impact, the states argued. The Biden administration has recently implemented these types of permit exclusions to advance clean energy projects.
The attorney general’s offices of Utah and Wyoming represent the states. The Department of the Interior represents itself.
The case is State of Utah v. Haaland, D. Utah, No. 2:24-cv-00438, Petition filed 06/18/24.
Keynote USA
For the Latest Local News, Follow Keynote USA Local on Twitter.