(RepublicanNews.org) – The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is taking the Biden administration’s green agenda to the next level of extreme. In March, the agency ruled via regulation that the act of not using public lands in the name of conservation is the same thing in the eyes of the law as developers putting the land to use.
Under their proposal, developers would no longer have access to resources on federally-owned land. Mining and drilling companies that have traditionally had access to these areas can now be pushed aside by environmental groups opposed to corporate land development. Said organizations will now be permitted to lease those federal areas in the same way developers have done in the past.
BLM efforts are now facing heavy resistance from a large number of private and state interests. Most of these parties are arguing that the agency is stretching the definition of what is allowed under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976.
The FLPMA originally required the BLM to open land under its management for grazing, mining, recreation, and resource development. The agency is now placing conservation on par with those uses. While the prior uses are defined in the language of the FLPMA, the term ‘conservation’ is not found anywhere in the law.
Montana AG Austin Knudsen says that the BLM’s new policy violates longstanding federal law and would be struck down if presented to Congress. The agency knows this and has chosen to rule by decree instead of through legislation, he says.
Knudsen referred to their actions as being done “on the sly.”
Cattlemen associations, farmers, and energy industry leaders have all begun to send letters of opposition to the Interior Department, reminding them that federal lands comprise huge portions of many states.
They say that more than 60% of land in Idaho, Utah, and Alaska is federally owned and that all of those areas are rich in economically crucial minerals and resources.
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