A pair of House Natural Resources subcommittees will dig into public land and conservation issues in the United States and abroad.
The Subcommittee on Federal Lands, chaired by Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.), will meet Wednesday to look back on the first full year of the Expanding Public Lands Outdoor Recreation Experiences Act, a sweeping collection of polices enacted in 2025 that lawmakers and public land advocates had sought for decades. Officials from the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service plan to testify.
The law, which created an interagency council for recreation, overhauled polices governing public land recreation, with measures to ease permitting, allow rock climbers to place fixed anchors and boost internet access, as well as mandate the creation of 10 new long-distance bike trails.
Introduced in 2023 by Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) and the late Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the law passed its one-year anniversary earlier this month.
