The Trump administration is canceling a 2024 rule that treated conservation on public lands as an equivalent “use” to development. The change is issued by the US Department of the Interior, which oversees the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The BLM manages about 10% of US land. The rule adopted under former President Joe Biden aimed to refocus BLM’s approach by allowing conservation activities to be handled through the same leasing framework that permits other activities, such as oil and gas development.
According to reporting across outlets, Interior is moving to undo this approach as part of a broader effort to ease restrictions on activities carried out on taxpayer-owned land, including drilling, logging, mining, and grazing. The cancellation follows arguments attributed to Interior leadership that the rule could limit access to large areas of land, potentially affecting energy production, timber operations, and ranching.
Supporters of the rule said conservation had been insufficiently prioritized under previous policies. The administration’s action shifts the policy emphasis away from conservation being explicitly recognized as a primary leasing “use” category under the prior framework.
