Industry Groups Sue US to Block Public Lands Conservation Rule

Groups representing farmers, ranchers, and other industries filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Bureau of Land Management’s rule designating conservation as a “use” of public lands under federal law.

The Conservation and Landscape Health Rule, often referred to as the Public Lands Rule, “threatens generations of family ranching operations in the U.S. by undermining the long-held balance of multiple-use management,” the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the Public Lands Council said in a press release announcing the suit.

Ten other groups representing industries including mining, logging, energy, and fossil fuels are also listed as plaintiffs in the suit, which was filed July 12 in the US District Court for the District of Wyoming.

The rule, which went into effect in June, informs the BLM’s ability to “maintain the resilience of ecosystems” on about 245 million acres of pubic lands, mostly in the West, via protection and restoration of degraded habitats. It also adds conservation as a use on par with all other uses designated by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, including mining, grazing, logging, and energy development.

In the lawsuit, the industry groups argue the BLM rule is “fundamentally at odds” with federal law.

The rule improperly interprets “use” to include “non-use,” it says, echoing comments made by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing last month. Lee said at the hearing that conservation use means the BLM “manages these lands like a museum,” where visitors can look but not touch.

The groups say the rule is arbitrary and capricious, is barred by the Congressional Review Act, and was promulgated without complying with the National Environmental Policy Act.

The rule is “substantially the same” as a 2016 “Resource Management Planning” rule that Congress overturned using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) in 2017, according to the lawsuit. “Because the Rule is substantially the same as a rule Congress has rejected under the CRA, BLM’s readoption of substantially the same regulations Congress has already disapproved is contrary to law and must be set aside,” the suit argues.

The BLM rule has been under fire from a variety of industry groups and Republican policymakers since it was proposed last year. At least two other lawsuits challenging the rule have already been filed—one brought by Utah and Wyoming and the other by North Dakota, Idaho, and Montana.

The BLM has argued that the rule is necessary to protect public lands against biodiversity loss, pollution from industrial uses, the worsening impacts of climate change and more.

Appearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in June, BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning said conservation was one key component of the agency’s mandate to balance multiple uses of public lands. Conservation does not always need to be an exclusive use, she said, and gave the example of a transmission line built across conserved land or the restoration of grasses in grazing areas.

Hirst Applegate LLP represents the plaintiffs.

The case is Am. Farm Bureau Fed’n v. US Dept. of the Interior, D. Wyo., No. 2:24-cv-00136, Complaint Filed 7/12/24.