AG Reyes Strongly Opposes BLM Rule in Two Letters
Last week, Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes joined two comment letters to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) opposing its proposed “Conservation and Landscape Health” rule. Idaho and Alaska spearheaded the letters.
According to BLM, the April 3rd proposed rule enhances provisions for the agency to “protect intact landscapes, restore degraded habitat, and make wise management decisions based on science and data.” BLM is responsible for more than 245 million acres of public lands—approximately ten percent of the United States. Ben Burr, the Executive Director of the BlueRibbon Coalition, asserted that this rule would essentially “sell off public lands to environmental groups who schemed up the 30 x 30 agenda,” which is an attempt to “justify locking up 30% of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030.”
The attorneys general make the case in the Idaho letter that BLM’s proposed rulemaking is “bad policy, unlawful, and would inflict immediate injuries on State, public, and small business interests.” The States argue that BLM “has no authority to adopt or implement the proposed rule” and that it “violates existing caselaw, furthers privatization of public lands, and would cause significant, detrimental, economic impacts to important State interests and harm small businesses.” Essentially, they conclude that the “rule would sell out our public lands to the highest bidder.”
General Reyes issued the following statement: “There is no state in our great Union that takes more pride in its public lands than Utah. We do not need the federal government continuing to regulate these lands or bequeath stewardship of the lands to parties that have little vested interest in our state. Our coalition will passionately oppose this gross encroachment of our States.”
In the Idaho letter, the attorneys general write that the “BLM does not have authority to exercise powers it does not have—here, leasing public lands for ‘conservation’ as a use. Similar unilateral actions have most recently been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court as a ‘particular and recurring problem: agencies asserting highly consequential power beyond what congress could reasonably be understood to have granted.’”
They demand that “immediate withdrawal of the rule must occur.”
The States of Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, and South Dakota joined the Idaho letter. Read the letter here.
Note: The Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office also submitted a letter to BLM opposing its proposed rule.
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