The Interior Department moved Monday to cancel a Biden-era regulation that placed conservation on equal footing with energy development, mining, and grazing on federally managed lands, drawing praise from the oil and gas industry and sharp criticism from environmental groups.
The 2024 rule implemented under former President Joe Biden’s administration was designed to refocus the Bureau of Land Management—which oversees about 10% of all U.S. land—on its conservation mission under the 1976 Federal Lands Policy Management Act. For the first time, the rule allowed outside parties to obtain leases for restoration work under terms similar to those that oil companies use for drilling.
In documents released Monday, administration officials said the rule exceeded the bureau’s authority. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the measure could have blocked access to hundreds of thousands of acres of land, preventing energy and timber production and damaging ranchers who rely on public grazing permits.
Conservation groups argued that the rule was a long-overdue counterweight to decades of industry-friendly policy at the land bureau. Bobby McEnaney of the Natural Resources Defense Council said the repeal “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.”
Industry representatives said the change under Biden had violated the “multiple use” mandate that governs federal lands by elevating what they called the “non-use” of public acreage—restoration leases—to an unwarranted prominence. Dan Naatz, of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said in a statement that the repeal “provides greater clarity and predictability for independent oil and natural gas producers—many of whom rely on consistent permitting and leasing processes to operate efficiently and invest in domestic energy supply.”
The federal government’s vast land holdings are concentrated in Western states, including Alaska, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Since taking office, President Donald Trump’s administration has pursued a series of actions aimed at boosting fossil fuel production from those taxpayer-owned sites while sidelining some renewable energy projects. The repeal is the latest in a string of moves that includes congressional cancellation of several last-minute Biden administration management plans that restricted development in portions of Alaska, Montana, and North Dakota.
In addition to its surface land, the Bureau of Land Management regulates publicly owned underground mineral reserves—including coal and lithium—across more than 1 million square miles. The agency has for more than a century sold grazing permits and oil and gas leases, and its management practices have long drawn scrutiny from environmental advocates who say restoration has been a secondary consideration.