WASHINGTON D.C. — Independent Women joined Mountain States Legal Foundation and several allied organizations in submitting comments supporting the Bureau of Land Management’s proposal to withdraw its 2024 Conservation and Landscape Health Rule.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has now acknowledged what critics warned from the start: the rule exceeded the agency’s legal authority and strayed from the multiple-use framework Congress established under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. By creating a new “conservation use” category and authorizing broad “conservation leases,” the rule threatened to sideline long-standing, lawful activities, including grazing, energy development, recreation, and other productive uses, across more than 245 million acres of public land.
Rescinding the rule is necessary to restore fidelity to federal law and ensure that public lands remain open to the full range of uses Congress intended. Independent Women urges BLM to finalize this correction promptly and reaffirm its commitment to transparent, lawful, and balanced land management.
Gabriella Hoffman, director of Independent Women’s Center for Energy and Conservation, said: “The BLM 2024 rule was aligned with Biden-Harris net-zero climate policies and put long-standing activities like hunting and fishing at risk while giving wind and solar developers wide latitude to justify their impacts. I applaud the Trump administration for restoring balanced use at the agency.”
Beth Parlato, senior legal advisor for Independent Women, said: “BLM’s 2024 rule strayed far beyond the limits Congress set, inventing a ‘conservation use’ framework with no statutory basis. Restoring the multiple-use mandate is essential to ensuring that federal agencies follow the law rather than rewrite it.”
View public comments here.
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