On Public Lands Day, anti-conservation forces continue relentless assault
Washington, D.C.
Carla Ruas
A year of major progress is threatened by extreme opposition
It’s been a tremendous year for public lands. In April, the Biden-Harris administration finalized a series of actions that together build a holistic movement to conserve nature, curb fossil fuels, boost renewable energy production, face down the climate crisis and protect communities from industrial polluters.
Perhaps the crown jewel amongst these treasures was the announcement of the finalized Public Lands Rule. A major victory for people and nature, the Public Lands Rule corrected a long-standing imbalance in the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) practices—definitively confirming that the agency is legally bound to treat conservation as an equal priority to resource extraction.
The rule’s finalization was a major development for the 245 million acres of public lands managed by the BLM. Prior to this, the agency had for decades frequently misinterpreted certain laws and policies as orders to charge full steam ahead on resource extraction. In 2016, one analysis showed that a stunning 90% of BLM lands were open for oil and gas leasing. The rule will help rebalance these management practices to benefit communities and nature, bringing an end to industrial development’s open buffet.
Now—on Public Lands Day, no less—threats both imminent and existential threaten to ravage public lands.
As expected, industrial interests and their political allies are working to reverse progress and reverse recent actions, including the finalization of the Public Lands Rule. To make matter worse, the state of Utah has filed an outrageous lawsuit against the federal government seeking to seize control of public lands for the benefit of industrial forces. If the state’s effort is successful, it would jeopardize and threaten to privatize over 200 million acres of public lands across the West and Alaska.
This is an extreme and unprecedented Hail Mary effort to take public lands away from we the people and hand them over to the highest corporate bidder—enough is enough.
