Farmers, ranchers, and others are challenging a policy change that puts conservation on the same footing as other land uses.
Farming, ranching, and other interests are banding together to sue the Bureau of Land Management over its public lands conservation rule, which elevates conservation to the same level as other uses of public land.
“The BLM has argued that the rule is necessary to protect public lands against biodiversity loss, pollution from industrial uses, the worsening impacts of climate change and more,” Gabe Castro-Root explains in Bloomberg Law. The BLM says conservation does not necessarily preclude other uses (for example, building transmission lines across conserved land).
The groups involved in the lawsuit argue that “The rule improperly interprets ‘use’ to include ‘non-use,’” preventing other uses. “The rule is ‘substantially the same’ as a 2016 ‘Resource Management Planning’ rule that Congress overturned using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) in 2017, according to the lawsuit.” States including Utah and Wyoming have filed similar lawsuits.
FULL STORY: Industry Groups Sue US to Block Public Lands Conservation Rule
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Grazing lands under the agency’s management are not meeting its own criteria for ecosystem conservation and sustainable use.
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