Critics are calling the Bureau of Land Management’s final version of BLM planning 2.0 “flawed.” The Public Lands Council and National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said this process radically alters federal land management planning and moves the agency away from its mandate to manage for multiple use on federal lands.
Stakeholders from across the United States submitted comments on the proposed planning rule, which will define how the BLM conducts its resource management planning process into the future. Many local and state governments are concerned that the changes in the Planning 2.0 rule may diminish local input and make it more difficult for counties, conservation districts, and other local authorities to be meaningfully involved in the land use planning process.
According to the National Association of Counties (NACo), “The BLM is a significant landholder, especially in western counties. Of the nation’s 3,069 counties, 477 counties contain lands managed by the BLM. For example, in White Pine County, Nevada, federal land management agencies control 5,195,606 acres – 91 percent – of the county’s 5,693,440 total area. Of the county’s 5,195,606 acres of federally managed land, the BLM is the single largest landholder, managing over 4.3 million acres within the county.”
Ethan Lane, Executive Director of the Public Lands Council stated, “We are continuing to review how much, if any, our input has been incorporated into the final plan, but regardless, we object to the Administration moving forward in the final days of the President’s term with this hastily-released regulation – particularly with one that will have such dramatic economic impact on western states,” said Lane.
U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, Chairman-Elect of the Congressional Western Caucus, stated, “Once again, the Obama Administration believes that Washington knows best and continues to defy the principles of federalism, subjugating Americans to another erroneous rule and more government red tape that strips away the authority and expertise of local land managers. BLM 2.0 is a bureaucratic nightmare that will kill jobs and create unnecessary permitting delays. This fundamentally flawed regulation will also impose costly and duplicative mandates on job creators and local communities. Local planning decisions should be made by the experts on the ground at the local level, not Washington bureaucrats. The Congressional Western Caucus will work with the Trump Administration, Republican leadership and important industry groups like the Public Lands Council and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association to scrap misguided directives imposed by Obama’s political hacks during their waning days.”
The BLM must scrap BLM 2.0 and go back to the drawing board, this time with real input from stakeholders across the West, Lane emphasized.
The BLM published its proposed Resource Management Planning rule, part of its Planning 2.0 initiative, on February 25, 2016. According to BLM, the goals of the proposed rule were to: “(1) Improve the BLM’s ability to respond to social and environmental change in a timely manner; (2) provide meaningful opportunities for other Federal agencies, State and local governments, Indian tribes, and the public to be involved in the development of BLM resource management plans; and (3) improve the BLM’s ability to address landscape-scale resource issues and to apply landscape-scale management approaches.”
The proposed rule made a number of changes to the procedures BLM follows to prepare resource management plans (“RMPs”) and affected the ability of state and local governments to participate in the planning process. In the past, BLM has prepared most RMPs at the field office level, but the draft rule sought to dramatically shift planning away from local communities and to BLM headquarters in Washington, D.C., opening the door for special interests to have a greater effect on BLM’s planning process than those who live near and rely on public lands.