Such companies currently hold leases across some 37,500 square miles (97,000 square kilometers) of bureau land. Joe Manchin’s support for last year’s climate law.īiden remains under intense pressure from Manchin and many Republicans to allow more drilling. Biden later revived the deals to win West Virginia Democratic Sen. While the bureau previously issued leases for conservation in limited cases, it has never had a dedicated program for it.įormer President Donald Trump tried to ramp up fossil fuel development on bureau lands, but President Joe Biden suspended new oil and gas leasing when he entered office. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada - where the federal land bureau controls about two thirds of the land - urged the administration to work with ranchers and farmers before finalizing the proposal, which the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said would “upend” land management in the West. There have not been rules around how we deliver on the portions of (federal law) that say, ‘Manage for fish and wildlife habitat, manage for clean water.’”ĭemocratic U.S. There are rules around how we do oil and gas. “There are rules around how we do solar development. “It makes conservation an equal among the multiple uses that we manage for,” Stone-Manning said. And people could still hunt on the leased property or use it for recreation, she said. If grazing is now permitted on a parcel, it could continue. Stone-Manning told the AP that critics were misreading the rule, and that conservation leases would not usurp existing ones. “The secretary wants to make non-use a use,” said Barrasso, the ranking Republican on the committee. John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican who tried to block Stone-Manning’s 2021 Senate confirmation, says the proposed rule is illegal.Įarlier this month he berated Interior Secretary Deb Haaland over it during an Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, saying she was “giving radicals a new tool to shut out the public.” “It would have a term, and when that restoration goal is met, the term would lapse,” he said. George, acting assistant director for the bureau, said the conservation leases would not “lock up land in perpetuity.” But officials acknowledged receiving numerous queries about grazing and drilling potentially being excluded.īrian St. There was no opportunity for public comment, and questions for officials were screened by the agency. Senior bureau officials on Monday night hosted the first virtual public meeting about the conservation proposal. Those holdings put the agency at the center of arguments over how much development should be allowed. It also regulates publicly owned underground minerals, including oil, coal and lithium for renewable energy across more than 1 million square miles (2.5 million square kilometers). The bureau has a history of industry-friendly policies for the 380,000 square miles (990,000 square kilometers) it oversees, an area more than twice the size of California. She said it would make conservation an “equal” to grazing, drilling and other uses while not interfering with them. Tracy Stone-Manning, director of the Bureau of Land Management, told The Associated the proposed changes address rising pressure from climate change and development.
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