The Trump administration last week moved a step closer to undoing a Biden-era environmental policy that elevated the standing of conservation on hundreds of millions of acres of public land.
Called the conservation and landscape health rule, the policy allowed the Bureau of Land Management to consider conservation as a use of public lands akin to other uses like oil and gas development, grazing, or recreation.
The measure, which was also called the public lands rule, provided for a new type of “conservation leasing,” which would allow parcels of public land to be leased specifically to pursue landscape restoration.
Industry groups and many Republicans have denounced the rule ever since it was proposed during the Biden administration. The Interior Department in September rolled out a plan to revoke it.
