Conservation shouldn’t be a “use” of America’s public lands, according to Rep. Celeste Maloy.
The Biden administration had finalized the rule, which it said restored balance in the management of public lands, in June.
Conservation shouldn’t be a “use” of America’s public lands, according to Rep. Celeste Maloy.
The Utah Republican on Tuesday introduced the Western Economic Security Today (WEST) Act in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill would repeal the Bureau of Land Management’s Public Lands Rule that put conservation on par with commercial uses — like oil and gas, grazing, mining and logging.
The rule was finalized in June under the Biden administration’s BLM, which at the time said it restored balance in the management of public lands. The rule also created “restoration and mitigation leases,” through which the BLM can lease degraded public land for rehabilitation by states, nonprofits or developers.
Utah sued the federal government over the rule last year. In Maloy’s view, the rule “shows just how broken our bureaucracy really is.”
“Congress directed BLM to manage public lands for multiple uses and sustained yield,” she said in a Tuesday statement. “This rule eliminates multiple use, locking out Utahns who have relied on these lands for ranching, grazing, recreation, and more for generations.”
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox agreed, arguing that the Biden administration “had a misguided zero-sum mentality towards public lands and constantly tried to lock up our lands” in a Tuesday statement thanking Maloy for introducing the WEST Act.
Travis Hammill, the D.C. director for the environmental nonprofit Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said Maloy’s bill runs counter to what most Utahns want for public lands. “Alleged concerns about the rule resulting in the ‘locking up’ of public lands are all smoke, no fire,” he said in a statement Tuesday.
Hammill added that the Public Lands Rule is “common sense land management and reinforces the decades-old principle that conservation is one of the multiple uses that Congress directed the Bureau of Land Management to account for as it goes about its day-in, day-out work.”
This bill is not Maloy’s first challenge to Biden-era public lands management this year.
Last month, she introduced the Ending Presidential Overreach on Public Lands Act. That legislation would prevent presidents from creating national monuments using the Antiquities Act of 1906. Instead, that authority would become Congress’.
Maloy represents Utah’s 2nd congressional district, which spans most of the western half of the state, including Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Zion National Park.