Climate change is slated to become an even more prominent factor in the Interior Department’s management of large swaths of land across the West under an updated rule the agency plans to propose later this year.
Interior’s Bureau of Land Management will update its “Sustained Yield and Land Health” rule to include climate change resiliency and restoration measures that would help ensure ecosystems on federal land remain “healthy and productive,” according to its updated regulatory agenda published this week.
It signals that the bureau’s existing conservation and biodiversity programs “may be elevated over productive uses,” such as oil and gas, ...