Report: Trump proposals would open vast public lands to industry
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) The public comment period on the proposed repeal of the U.S. Forest Service roadless rule ended Friday. If the rule is abandoned, the decision will add to a growing number of Trump administration actions that reduce protections on up to 175 million acres of federal public land, according to a new report.
On Monday, the Center for American Progress released a report summarizing a series of administration actions that are slowly chipping away at public lands, and the ramifications are almost as large as an earlier Congressional proposal to allow certain public lands to be sold.
In June, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, originally proposed a provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill that would have allowed up to 3.2 million acres of U.S. Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service land in 11 western states to be sold. In the end, the provision didn’t go through, partly because it violated Senate rules but also due to a large amount of public opposition.
In the meantime, recent administration orders and proposals are in essence giving away even more land to extraction industries, according to the report.
“Even after Americans loudly rejected attempts to sell off public lands, the Trump administration is rolling forward with actions to transfer control of massive amounts of public lands for corporate profits,” said Drew McConville, Center for American Progress senior fellow and co-author of the report. “These efforts to unprotect and sell out public lands are wildly out of step with what the public wants.”
Recently, the U.S. House passed joint resolutions to negate three resource management plans in order to allow more coal mining and oil and gas drilling on U.S. Bureau of Land Management parcels. Sponsors touted the resolutions as supporting Trump’s executive orders to Reinvigorate America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry and Unleash America’s Energy. In eastern Montana, more than 1,745,000 acres of BLM land would be opened to coal leasing, which could bar other uses. The resolutions have been introduced in the Senate but have yet to be heard in committee.
A huge amount of land is targeted in Alaska, with the possible retraction of a central Yukon resource management plan removing protections from 3.7 million acres. Add to that a proposed removal of protections on 13 million acres of the Northern Petroleum Reserve and an executive order opening almost 28 million acres of “D-1” BLM land to resource extraction. As a result, Alaska could lose protections on 45 million acres of public land, and that doesn’t include the 14.7 million acres that could be affected if the roadless rule is repealed.
As of Friday, almost 628,000 people had submitted comments to Regulations.gov during the three-week comment period on the proposed repeal of the roadless rule, according to the Federal Register. The day before the comment period closed, the Center for Western Priorities did an analysis of around 183,000 comments and found more than 99% opposed the rule’s repeal.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins proposed the repeal in late June, and if it goes through, it would open more than 39 million acres, including to unlimited road-building. Montana has almost 6.4 million acres of inventoried roadless areas, including in the Crazy Mountains, the Beartooth Mountains and the Gallatin and Bitterroot ranges, according to a U.S. Forest Service summary. Only two other states have more: Idaho with 9.3 million acres and Alaska. Notably, the three states are also the ones with the most abundant and varied wildlife populations.
While groups such as the National Wildlife Federation and WildEarth Guardian opposed the rule for a myriad of reasons - preserving roadless land for wildlife, clean water and reducing the chances of human-caused wildfire - a few groups, such as the American Forests Resource Council, support dismantling the rule. Those groups say the rule hinders logging and management. The rule does allow logging but it doesn’t allow road building that would allow logging trucks in.
The Center for American Progress report also notes that another Trump administration proposal announced in April would change how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service interprets part of the Endangered Species Act. The agency would no longer consider habitat destruction as “harm” to an endangered species, so again, it would allow natural resource extraction on another 87.5 million acres now identified as providing security for a wide variety of endangered species, including grizzly bears and Canada lynx.
In total, resource extraction industries would be allowed to exploit more than 175 million acres of public lands nationwide if all the Trump administration proposals go through, according to the report.
“At rock-bottom prices, extractive corporations can scoop up long-term leases or mining claims that encumber public lands for many decades. That includes formerly protected lands and waters treasured today for their outdoor adventure opportunities, wildlife, and history,” the report concludes.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.