Trump Administration Repeals Landmark Public Lands Rule
Repeal attacks conservation as a core requirement for managing America’s 245 million acres of public lands
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of the Interior repealed the Bureau of Land Management’s Public Lands Rule, eliminating the regulatory requirement that conservation be weighed alongside mining, drilling, timber, and grazing across 245 million acres of public lands. The rule was finalized in 2024 with more than 90 percent of public commenters in support. One in ten westerners gets their clean drinking water from BLM lands.
Following is a statement from Bobby McEnaney, director of land conservation at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):
“This repeal ignores the public, ignores the law, and ignores the real needs of local communities and those whose lives and livelihoods are deeply connected to these natural resources. That means less protection for the clean drinking water, less protection for endangered wildlife that depend on healthy habitat, and less accountability when corporations leave these landscapes damaged and degraded.
“Congress and the courts have been clear that BLM must manage for conservation alongside other uses. But this administration is lawlessly green-lighting extraction. If this takes effect, the drilling, mining, and logging industries will get their way while public lands are damaged and spoiled for the rest of us.”
Background:
The Public Lands Rule, finalized in 2024, updated BLM’s management framework to consider conservation actions alongside energy extraction, grazing, and mining, consistent with the agency’s foundational multiple-use mandate under federal law. Conservation is foundational and supports almost all other uses of public lands.
The repeal is part of the administration’s broader campaign to strip protections from America's shared lands: simultaneously moving to repeal the Roadless Rule that protects nearly 60 million acres of national forests, gutting the U.S. Forest Service through a sweeping restructuring that eliminates regional offices and shutters research stations, and weakening Clean Water Act protections.
NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Established in 1970, NRDC uses science, policy, law and people power to confront the climate crisis, protect public health and safeguard nature. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Beijing and Delhi (an office of NRDC India Pvt. Ltd).