Article originally appeared on thefederalist.com.
After outcry from Western constituencies and their representatives in Congress, the Bureau of Land Management has extended the public comment period on its proposed public lands rule that threatens to upend those Americans’ way of life.
The new rule proposed in March establishes a framework for “conservation leases” elevated over other uses such as mining, grazing, and gas development. The agency guidelines, which were created without a congressional vote, would implement a radical departure from the “multiple use mandate” outlined by Congress in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA).
The multiple use mandate requires the BLM, which presides over 245 million acres, primarily in the West, to make lands available for a wide variety of uses for maximum benefit. Conservation leases are poised to choke off millions of acres from those uses.
[READ: New BLM Rules On ‘Conservation Leases’ …
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