Federal and state Republicans are upset with the Biden-Harris administration’s plans for 3.6 million acres in southwestern Wyoming, saying the Bureau of Land Management put climate activists’ concerns ahead of local input.
The bureau said it tried to balance the economic use of public land in its Rock Springs Resource Management Plan with the preservation of the area’s “cultural, scenic and natural heritage.”
The agency said it blended four “alternatives” in an attempt to make everyone happy, particularly after protests over conservation-heavy plans last year. The final plan reduced the number of acres of “critical environmental concern” and opened more acres to fluid mineral drilling than initially proposed.
Wyoming Republicans described the plan as a land lockup that would undermine their mining, livestock, recreation and energy industries. They vowed to continue the fight through formal protests.
“A cursory review makes it clear where the BLM considered local and cooperative input, and where the agency chose to force through national agendas,” Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, said in a press release Thursday. “Make no mistake, the state of Wyoming will be filing protests where our comments were disregarded.”
The spat is the latest area of friction between the Biden-Harris administration, which has prioritized conservation and efforts to fight climate change, and leaders in Western states who say their economic input is being hamstrung.
For instance, some Republicans want to overhaul the Antiquities Act of 1906 so presidents can’t close off millions of acres through national monument designations without significant public input.
They point to the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument under President Clinton and the Bears Ears National Monument under President Obama, plus President Biden’s establishment of a 917,600-acre monument in northern Arizona.
On the campaign trail, former President Donald Trump has vowed to reopen the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil production after Mr. Biden revoked drilling licenses.
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, Arkansas Republican, said the Wyoming decision is “another attack on American energy and mineral production by the radical environmentalists of the Biden-Harris administration.”
“This level of rogue bureaucratic extremism has defined the Biden-Harris administration’s land lockup policies,” he said, “and we will do everything in our power to fight for balanced land management to support local communities and America’s critical mineral needs.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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