Planned Repeal of ‘Public Lands Rule’ Could Unleash Federal Resource Development

There has been speculation that the Interior Department intends to not only increase development of public lands but also sell them to states. That concern prompted John Tubbs, former director of the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, to study what that might mean for management costs to states like Montana.

Tubbs argued alongside other conservation groups in a new report that transferring the control of federally owned public lands back to state control can be “staggering and disproportionately impactful for a rural state with large swaths of national public lands.” 

States could become responsible for maintaining these lands for wildfire mitigation and response, which would disrupt rural states' reliance on federal funding. Montanans could face an estimated $7.9 billion tax burden within the next 20 years. 

“This massive new state tax burden would be primarily driven by the stateʼs need to take on wildfire management, the deferred maintenance backlog, and abandoned mine reclamation on public lands,” the report reads. “The state would be left shouldering a massive fiscal burden, with no capacity to manage the soaring costs of wildfire suppression, a ten-fold increase from current federal support, an ever-growing half-billion-dollar maintenance backlog, and nearly a billion dollars of abandoned mine reclamation work.”

Currently, Montana shares wildfire management costs with federal agencies. According to the report, if public lands were to be transferred entirely back to the state, the financial burden of wildfire mitigation and response costs alone would largely be on state taxpayers, amounting to up to $5.5 billion over two decades. 

Nearly half of Wyoming, the nation’s 10th-largest and least populated state, is federal public land. BLM manages almost 12 million acres of public land across Idaho, and roughly 47 million acres in Montana and the Dakotas. 

“The notion that the [Trump] administration may intend to move forward unilaterally without following any public engagement process is deeply troubling,” said Kaden McArthur, director of policy and government relations of the group Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, in an April 16 press release. “The Public Lands Rule reflects years of work, including extensive input from stakeholders, to ensure the long-term health of the landscapes we rely on for healthy fish and wildlife habitat. To abandon the Rule in its entirety – and the overwhelming public support behind it – is a direct affront to those who value America’s wild places, and the democratic process used to steward them for the benefit of all of us as public land owners.”

Alison Flint, senior legal director of The Wilderness Society, said the principles at the basis of the Public Lands Rule date back 50 years to the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, which obligated BLM to manage public lands under a multiple-use and sustained-yield mission for “conservation and consumptive uses.” 

“Congress imposed a half-century ago what the conservation side of that multiple-use coin would look like, and how to balance those into the future,” Flint said. “Those conservation mandates have in the best of times been unevenly applied, and in the worst of times been fully ignored or abrogated due at least in part to a lack of regulatory direction for the land managers charged with making decisions that impact our public lands and resources.” 

Although Congress established rules to incorporate conservation into land management, there was a lack of clear regulatory direction for how to do so, according to Flint. The Public Lands Rule gave BLM the opportunity to provide guidance, tools and direction for land managers to better incorporate conservation and restoration. 

Flint added that while public lands do indeed have a role for extractive industries, their use must be balanced to protect against potential impacts on communities, wildlife habitats, cultural resources and the future of the climate. 

“All of these things the Public Lands Rule was trying to recognize and give a seat at the table and bring into the decision-making of those charged with managing public lands," she said. "The Public Lands Rule was poised to give these sorts of values a more meaningful seat at the decision-making table and provide a range of options for those charged with managing public lands for how to protect them.” 

Public land use isn’t just about recognizing multiple uses, but also the sustained yield of resources for current and future generations to enjoy, she said.

“Americans at heart care really deeply about these shared resources. It’s where they camp, fish, hike and where their water comes from,” Flint said. “It’s our common ground. We also know that our partners in Indian Country and tribal nations care even more deeply — these are their ancestral lands. Concerning the Public Lands Rule, it was meant to help improve how we conserve and use public lands, to gain efficiencies over the long term, to make sure that the BLM can comply with what Congress directed back in 1976.” 

Zablocki says that access to unadulterated public lands is unique to Americans, who have a deep-rooted connection to the wild places they call home.

“Public lands are such an integral part of the American experience, and people here often take it for granted because it’s so rooted in American life,” he said. “But the threat of rapid degradation through unrestrained leasing and extractive industries is very real.”