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Dear Friend,
In 2022, WELC led a coalition of 30 environmental and community groups that petitioned the Department of Interior to establish a public lands management framework grounded in Interior’s climate and conservation-centered powers. In 2024, the Biden administration finalized the Public Lands Rule, providing a suite of tools to protect what Americans value most about our public lands—access to nature, clean water, abundant wildlife, and majestic landscapes. The rule reverses decades of imbalanced management on the 250 million acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management, shifting us from an era that favored extraction to one of resilient ecosystems.
Now, the Trump administration is hard at work to rescind this common-sense public lands management tool.
We need your help to push back against this assault on public lands. The administration is accepting public comments on its plans to rescind the Public Lands Rule through Monday, November 10. Please take some time to provide a comment at this link.
Please feel free to refer to these talking points when crafting your own public comment in support of the Public Lands Rule:
Why the Public Lands Rule Matters: After more than 40 years of putting extractive industries first, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) took a historic step in 2024 with the Public Lands Rule. For the first time, the agency made clear what the law always required–that conservation, including thriving ecosystems, protection and restoration of cultural resources and wildlife habitat, and healthy, interconnected, and intact landscapes, must be considered on equal footing as drilling, mining, and other industrial uses. This rule clarifies how America’s lands are managed—affirming that they must prioritize the broad public interest.
Systematic Assault on America’s public lands
- Rescinding the Public Lands Rule is not an isolated action—it’s part of a broader pattern of attacks on America’s shared lands. From proposals to sell them off, to cutting funding for stewardship, repealing protections like the Roadless Rule, and firing thousands of public servants who dedicated their lives and careers to promoting the public good, this administration is systematically weakening safeguards and opening the door to privatization, turning our public heritage into a center for corporate profit.
Favors Special Interests Over the Public Interest
- Repealing the Public Lands Rule returns us to an outdated, extraction-first model that prioritizes short-term profits for private interests over long-term benefits for communities, tribes, and the American people.
- It would weaken safeguards that prevent public lands from being degraded, stripped, and privatized for the benefit of a few industries.
Threat to Local Economies and Communities
- Recreation on public lands contributes hundreds of billions to the U.S. economy each year and supports millions of jobs. Rescinding the rule jeopardizes these thriving sectors by privileging extraction that scars landscapes and reduces recreational access.
- Communities across the West—from hunters and anglers to small business owners—depend on healthy, intact public lands. Gutting this rule would undermine those livelihoods.
Overwhelming Public Support for the Public Lands Rule:
- The Public Lands Rule is widely supported across the country with 92% of public comments in favor. The rule garnered strong backing from a broad coalition of western lawmakers, local officials, governors, legal scholars, scientists, tribes, and a diverse group of stakeholders, including hunters, anglers, and businesses. The overwhelming support from the public is a testament to the rule’s balanced approach and its broad appeal.
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Several major Western newspapers, including the Salt Lake Tribune, Denver Post, and Albuquerque Journal editorialized in favor of the rule, with the Salt Lake Tribune opining: “The only thing wrong with a proposed rule that would have the U.S. Bureau of Land Management officially consider conservation as one of the ‘multiple uses’ intended for the huge swaths of public land it oversees is that it wasn’t written 47 years ago.”
Public Lands Rule Stands on Solid Legal Ground
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The rescission notice puts forward several justifications in support of rescinding the Public Lands Rule—even claiming the rule itself is unlawful. This is yet another effort by the Trump administration to bend the law to fit its agenda.
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In reality, the Public Lands Rule is solidly based on the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976’s multiple-use and sustained-yield mandate. Congress explicitly gave BLM not only the authority, but in many cases an affirmative obligation, to manage for conservation so that public lands can provide lasting benefits for generations. Federal courts have consistently upheld BLM’s discretion to balance and manage multiple uses, and the rule is fully consistent with that authority.
This marks a dramatic escalation in the administration’s assault on public lands. It took a mountain of effort to make the Public Lands Rule a reality, and we are appalled by the Trump administration’s proposal to reject even the notion of conserving our natural heritage in this way.
Please provide your public comment by the end of the day on Monday, November 10. It will help us down the line.
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