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A proposed rule under consideration by the Bureau of Land Management could help shape the future of Otero Mesa, the greater Chaco Canyon area and 13 million acres overseen by the federal agency in New Mexico.

And time is running out for the public to weigh in.

The agency is accepting public comment on the proposed public lands rule through June 20 - with a final decision expected in March next year.

A coalition of conservation and outdoor recreation enthusiasts is urging New Mexicans to support the proposal. They describe it as a way to put conservation on equal footing with other potential uses of public land - such as oil and gas development and livestock grazing - and to strengthen collaboration with Native American tribes, nations and pueblos.

Opponents, in turn, question whether the rule will be used to curtail drilling, grazing and similar activities.

The proposal, in any case, is expected have an outsized impact on the West and New Mexico, where the federal government is the largest land manager in the state.

It would allow environmental groups or others to lease federal land for conservation - a step the Bureau of Land Management says would simply put conservation on "equal footing" with other potential uses, such as development.

A conservation lease, for example, could be used to restore animal habitat or help compensate for development of other public lands.

Jesse Deubel, executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, said the proposal is particularly important for hunters and anglers in New Mexico, where some families rely on what they catch for food.

"To a lot of New Mexicans, public lands are more than just outdoor recreation," he told the Journal on Thursday. "Public land is actually our grocery store."

Advocates for the oil and gas industry, however, say the federal law already provides significant protection for sensitive lands and ecosystems.

The Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico called the rule a "highly flawed proposal" that should be withdrawn.

"By elevating conservation above all other uses," Jim Winchester, the group's executive director, said Thursday, "the BLM violates its own statutory requirements to balance multiple uses of public lands."

State Rep. Greg Nibert, a Roswell Republican who works as an oil and gas attorney, said the proposed rule could affect wind farms and renewable energy, not just drilling operations. Its practical impact, however, is unclear, given that the agency already is charged with managing the land for multiple uses, he said.

But "one of my concerns," Nibert said, "would be that this would be used as a tool to slow things down or to create another hurdle for (oil and gas) leasing."

Joe Vigil of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association described the proposed rule as "an overreach with too many unanswered questions."

The Bureau of Land Management, he said, already has rules that strike the right balance between energy development and environmental stewardship.

But Danielle Murray, senior legal and policy director of the Conservation Lands Foundation, said the agency has skewed for decades in favor of extractive industries.

Under the rule, she said, development of federal lands will continue, but conservation would be on par with other uses and require the agency to show it has considered impacts on watersheds and landscapes.

Michael Casaus, New Mexico state director for the Wildnerness Society, said the rule could help protect Otero Mesa - the largest remaining Chihuahuan desert grassland of its kind in the country, he said - in southern New Mexico. The area is home to 200 bird species, native pronghorn antelope and other wildlife, he said.

Vulnerable to oil and gas development, Otero Mesa is "one of the most endangered ecosystems in America," Casaus said.

The greater Chaco region in northwestern New Mexico could also benefit, he said. Even outside the boundaries of the Chaco Canyon Historical Park, Casaus said, the broader region has archaeological sites that deserve protection.

The proposed rules requires meaningful consultation with Native American tribes, nations and pueblos.

"We know these lands, the animals and plants - their importance to our culture and history," said Keegan King, who's from Acoma Pueblo and is executive director of the Native Land Institute, which supports the rule.

The local coalition supporting the proposed rule the overwhelming majority of land managed by the BLM in New Mexico is open to oil and gas development, while only 11% is protected.

The Bureau of Land Management is part of the U.S. Interior Department, led by Cabinet Secretary Deb Haaland, a Democrat and former congresswoman from New Mexico.

Make your voice heard
n To read or comment on the proposed rule, visit regulations.gov, scroll down and click on the Bureau of Land Management box for conservation and land management.
n The deadline to comment is June 20

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Proposed rule for public lands expected to have outsized impact in New Mexico. Here's how to weigh in.

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A proposed rule under consideration by the Bureau of Land Management could help shape the future of Otero Mesa, the greater Chaco Canyon area and 13 million acres overseen by the federal agency in New Mexico. And time is running out for the public to weigh in.

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Earlier this month, the United States Department of the Interior proposed a new rule that could fundamentally change how the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) makes decisions about land use, bringing conservation to the forefront. The rule would direct BLM decision makers to "protect intact landscapes, restore degraded habitat, and make wise management decisions based on science and data," the proposal reads.

The BLM manages more than 245 million acres, almost exclusively in the American West. The agency has been charged by Congress-through the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA)-to manage these lands for multiple uses. Historically those uses have included recreation, mining, grazing, timber, and oil and gas development. With its new rule proposal, the BLM is hoping to add conservation to that list.

"As the nation continues to face unprecedented drought, increasing wildfires and the declining health of our landscapes, our public lands are under growing pressure. It is our responsibility to use the best tools available to restore wildlife habitat, plan for smart development, and conserve the most important places for the benefit of the generations to come," said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in a press release issued on March 30. "As we welcome millions of visitors to hunt, fish and recreate on our public lands each year, now is the time to improve the health and management of special places."

Putting Conservation on Par with Other Uses

Referred to as the Conservation and Lands Health Resources Rule, or Public Lands Rule for short, the proposal would "direct land managers to identify and prioritize public lands and waters that require habitat restoration work." According to the BLM, that would include projects like invasive species removal and stream bed restoration. The rule could also expand the agency's efforts to restore and maintain important migration corridors that big game species like deer, elk, and antelope depend on for survival.

"Our public lands provide so many benefits - clean water, wildlife habitat, food, energy, and lifetime memories, to name just a few- and it's our job to ensure the same for future generations," said Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning. "As pressure on our public lands continues to grow, the proposed Public Lands Rule provides a path for the BLM to better focus on the health of the landscape, ensuring that our decisions leave our public lands as good or better off than we found them."

Support in the Hunting Community

The proposed rule has broad support in the hunting-focused conservation community, including endorsements from both Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA) and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP). "This framework will give BLM managers the tools they need to manage for intact and resilient landscapes," said BHA President and CEO Land Tawney. "It prioritizes important active management prescriptions to tackle invasive species and the restoration of lands and waters through conservation leasing-an underutilized tool that will encourage partnerships and collaboration with local communities and NGOs like BHA."

Related: Colorado Bill Could Delay Wolf Reintroduction for Several Years

According to the TRCP, the Public Lands Rule would bring much-needed clarity to the BLM's "multiple use" land management strategy. "[We] support the restoration and conservation of fish and wildlife habitat on BLM lands as part of the agency's multiple use and sustained yield mission, and we appreciate the opportunity to engage in this process," said TRCP's Joel Webster. "We plan to roll up our sleeves to ensure that the BLM's Conservation and Landscape Health Rule improves management of our public lands to benefit sportsmen and sportswomen."

The draft rule is currently open for a 75-day public comment period that closes on June 20, 2023.

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A New Rule Could Change the Way the BLM Manages Public Land in the West

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Earlier this month, the United States Department of the Interior proposed a new rule that could fundamentally change how the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) makes decisions about land use, bringing conservation to the forefront. The rule would direct BLM decision makers to "protect intact landscapes, restore degraded habitat, and make wise management decisions based on science and data," the proposal reads.

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This is an installment of the Landline, a fortnightly newsletter from High Country News about land, water, wildlife, climate and conservation in the Western United States. Sign up to get it in your inbox.
The Biden administration looks to reform public-land management
Entities could lease land to restore and heal it.
On March 30, the Interior Department issued a draft of a new Public Lands Rule , designed to "guide the balanced management of public lands" and put conservation on a par with other uses of federal lands, such as grazing, oil and gas drilling and mining. "As the nation continues to face unprecedented drought, increasing wildfires and the declining health of our landscapes, our public lands are under growing pressure," Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a . "It is our responsibility to use the best tools available to restore wildlife habitat, plan for smart development, and conserve the most important places for the benefit of the generations to come."

The proposed rule, which is open to public comment until June 20, was praised as a "seismic shift" in land management by though a hardline environmental group downplayed it as merely "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." The think-tank Pew Research Center described the proposal as a change" the development-over-conservation dynamic. Meanwhile, Sen. John Barrasso, the Wyoming Republican, compared the bureaucrats who wrote the "decree" to the tree-spiking eco-warriors of the 1980s , while the ranching industry feels "betrayed" by what it says is a plan to eradicate grazing on public lands.

I'll get to the specifics of the draft rule in a moment, but first let's go back nearly five decades to the time when the Carter administration set out to implement the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) of 1976 , which required that public lands be managed for multiple uses and sustained yields rather than to maximize extraction. While that may not sound radical today, at the time it represented a significant break from the status quo.

In a rousing March 1977 speech, newly appointed Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus minced no words when describing the shift: " At Interior we have begun to make sweeping institutional and policy changes to end what I see as the domination of the department by mining, oil and other special interests," he said. " We intend to exercise our stewardship of public lands and natural resources in a manner that will make the ' three Rs' - rape, ruin and run - a thing of the past."

Much to the disappointment of conservationists, FLPMA did not overturn the Mining Law of 1872 or the General Mineral Leasing Act of 1920. However, it did end the long-standing practice of " disposing " of federal lands to states, corporations or individuals. It also tossed out a provision in the 1866 Mining Act that granted anyone the right to build a road across the public domain without a permit, and it opened the door to wilderness designations on Bureau of Land Management lands. Or, as Andrus put it, "The initials BLM no longer stand for Bureau of Livestock and Mining."

That did not go over well with the ranching, mining and oil and gas industries or their political supporters. The resulting backlash helped spark the Sagebrush Rebellion across the rural West, with the powerful beef livestock lobby aligning with oil and gas and mining interests and right-wing ideological crusaders to push back against what they saw as a challenge to their right to exploit public lands, something that would just encourage an invasion of backpackers and "toadstool worshippers." The Rebellion died down, at least for a while, when Ronald Reagan was elected president and Interior Secretary James Watt eviscerated most of Andrus' reforms and then some, putting livestock and mining rights back into "BLM."

Today, the Interior Department's rhetoric around the proposed rule has been far less incendiary than Andrus' was. Instead of singling out mining and ranching, the current rule says public lands are being degraded by climate change-exacerbated drought, wildfire and invasive species. The rule's text explains its purpose: "This proposed rule is designed to ensure ... public lands continue to provide minerals, energy, forage, timber, and recreational opportunities, as well as habitat, protected water supplies, and landscapes that resist and recover from drought, wildfire, and other disturbances."

The proposed rule:

This probably sounds like it doesn't change anything. And yet it's this provision that has really raised industry's hackles. Mallori Miller of the Independent Petroleum Producers Association told S&P Global that "the administration is making a policy shift of gigantic proportions ... by giving conservation equal footing to all other public land uses."

Is it just me, or does that sound a bit like an acknowledgment that the feds have always, as a matter of course, favored industry over preservation as a matter of course? Nah, I must be imagining things...

When the BLM issues a grazing permit, it's supposed to ensure that watersheds, riparian areas, water quality, habitat and ecological processes remain healthy. These same land-health standards have never been applied to non-grazing uses of public lands, and that would change under this rule. The problem, however, as critics have pointed out, is that the agency has never done a decent job of enforcing these standards for livestock operators , so how can it be expected to start doing so now, given the 245 million acres it is tasked with overseeing?

In contrast, the ranching industry praised this provision since it means livestock operators will no longer be singled out.

"... establishes a durable mechanism, conservation leases , to promote both protection and restoration on the public lands, while providing opportunities for engaging the public in the management of public lands for this purpose."

When I first heard about this provision I thought (more accurately, hoped) it would allow environmentalists to bid on oil and gas leases and, if they won, prevent drilling on the parcel in question, a la Tim DeChristopher , who went to jail for trying this, since it was at the time to buy a lease and then not drill it. Alas, that is not quite the case. Instead, the rule would make conservation leases available to entities that seek to restore public lands or provide mitigation for a particular action. A nonprofit could lease a parcel, pay rent and post a reclamation bond to do riparian area restoration, for example, or a solar company might lease a parcel to do some land-healing to offset its impacts to other public land.

The lease would not override valid existing rights, though it would preclude the parcel from being leased for drilling or mining or grazing during the extendable 10-year term. The leases might also block future leasing for uses deemed incompatible with the conservation work. The BLM is seeking public input on whether to limit the lands that would be available for conservation leasing, as well as on what the appropriate time term and bonding requirements should be, and whether to have bonding requirements in place, if, for example, a sovereign Indigenous nation were to restore or preserve an area of cultural importance.

"... amend the existing ACEC (Area of Critical Environmental Concern) regulations to ensure that the BLM is meeting FLPMA's command to give priority to the designation and protection of ACECs." The changes would emphasize the areas as the primary designation for protecting important natural, cultural, and scenic resources and contributing to ecosystem resilience by protecting intact landscapes and preserving habitat connectivity. It would also establish a more comprehensive framework for identifying and evaluating these areas.

The designation "Area of Critical Environmental Concern" is currently used to protect sites of cultural and ecological importance. A couple of decades ago, for example, the agency designated areas of critical concern in and around major sites in northwestern New Mexico that are associated with Chaco Culture National Historic Park but lie outside its boundaries. Drilling and other development is now prohibited around those sites, though landscape-scale features remain vulnerable.

The new rule would codify procedures developed over the last 40 years to provide consistency. But it would also beef up the protective strength of the provision by requiring "consideration of ecosystem resilience, landscape-level needs, and rapidly changing landscape conditions" when designating and managing ACECs.

Federal land-management agencies already are required to consult with tribal nations on "issues that affect their interests," though in many cases the consultation has been cursory inadequate, often just a matter of checking off a few boxes. In 2021, the Biden administration issued an order aimed at strengthening tribal consultation and opening doors to tribal co-stewardship of public lands. The proposed rule reinforces that order and its associated guidance.

In a statement reacting to the rule's announcement, Keegan King of Acoma Pueblo, CEO of the nascent nonprofit the Native Lands Institute , the "BLM's renewed focus on conservation, recreation, and cultural resource protection" signaled by the proposed rule.

SO, IS THIS NEW RULE FLPMA Part II? Or is it merely a return to the principles that FLPMA originally set out, but that the agencies strayed away from over the years? Will it end "rape, ruin and run" for good? And, if so, will that spark yet another Sagebrush Rebellion? (Not that the previous one has ever quite ended.)

The answers largely depend on what the final rule looks like, and, to some extent, it is implemented. If Interior does not move quickly and a less conservation-friendly administration takes control of the White House in 2024, then the new rule could be tossed out relatively easily.

I'll leave you with some more of Andrus' words from 46 years ago, which ring truer than ever today: "Conservation is no longer a pious ideal - it is an element of our survival, and my efforts will focus on curbing old habits of overconsumption and misuse, seeking instead to use less and to use better. The days when economic interests exercised control over decisions on the public domain are past. The public ' s lands will be managed in the interest of the people because they belong to all the people. For too long, much of the land where the deer and the antelope play has been managed primarily for livestock often to the detriment of wildlife."

Hold the Line: Stories from HCN and elsewhere that are worth your time

The Berkeley Pit on the edge of Butte, Montana, is a huge, defunct copper mine that has become one of the world's largest bodies of acid mine drainage-tainted water. Unfortunately, it also offers a tempting - and deadly - landing spot for migratory birds, a combination that killed some 3,000 snow geese in 2016. To avoid a repeat, the companies responsible for the toxic lake have tried to engineer the problem away. But their efforts were futile, as , because they failed to account for waterfowl ecology or behavior. Now, ecologists are helping engineers devise better solutions to the bird vs. toxic pit problem. | Sarah Trent reports for High Country News High Country News

The colonial narrative of horses in the Americas goes something like this: The ancestors of today's equines roamed North America for millions of years before going extinct about 10,000 years ago after the last Ice Age ended. Spanish colonists then brought them back to the Southwest in the 1500s. When the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 drove the Spaniards back to what is now Mexico, the horses they abandoned scattered onto the Great Plains and other parts of the West. Indigenous histories have always contradicted this account, however. And now a new study has shed further doubt on elements of the colonial story, showing that horses not only roamed the Great Plains long before previously assumed, but were important parts of Indigenous societies before the colonists arrive. Two of the study's authors for illuminate the findings and debunk the old myth The Conservation. | The Conversation and republished at HCN.

Whoops! In the last Landline, we got a bit carried away with our account of the massive 1983 spring runoff on the Colorado River, writing that the "rising waters cratered Glen Canyon Dam's spillways and then spilled dramatically over the top of the dam." Not quite. Cavitation did, indeed, crater the spillway tunnels , forcing them to be shut down to prevent further damage. That caused the reservoir to overflow the top of the spillway gates, but big plywood slats installed as a quick fix kept the water from actually spilling over the dam . So, the lake overflowed, dramatically, but did not spill over.

If you were to be offered a conservation lease for BLM-managed parcel of your choice (see above for details), where would you want that lease to be and what kind of restoration work would you do? Let us know, and we may run your response in a future Landline.

Your news tips, comments, ideas and feedback are appreciated and often shared. Give Jonathan a ring at the Landline, 970-648-4472, or send us an email at .

Jonathan Thompson is a contributing editor at High Country News Sagebrush Empire: How a Remote Utah County Became the Battlefront of American Public Lands .
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This is an installment of the Landline, a fortnightly newsletter from High Country News about land, water, wildlife, climate and conservation in the Western United States. Sign up to get it in your inbox. Entities could lease land to restore and heal it.

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Rule would allow for conservation leases, similar to how BLM auctions off parcels of land for mining, livestock grazing or oil and gas development

Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.

Jacob Fischler

Jacob covers federal policy as a senior reporter for States Newsroom. Based in Oregon, he focuses on Western issues. His coverage areas include climate, energy development, public lands and infrastructure.

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Western lands fight erupts over Bureau of Land Management's conservation proposal - Idaho Capital Sun

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Rule would allow for conservation leases, similar to how BLM auctions off parcels of land for mining, livestock grazing or oil and gas development Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site.

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Public Lands Rule | Bureau of Land Management

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The proposed Public Lands Rule would establish a framework to ensure healthy landscapes, abundant wildlife habitat, clean water and balanced decision-making on our nation's public lands. The proposal would uphold the Bureau of Land Management's multiple use and sustained yield mission, ensuring the health, diversity, and productivity of public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.