Congress nullifies resource plans

Congress has begun nullifying resource management plans that were developed and implemented to guide long-term stewardship of federal lands. Plans cooperatively developed by the federal Bureau of Land Management in Montana, North Dakota, and Alaska -- in consultation with scientists, conservation groups, indigenous peoples, industry, and other users of these tracts of federal lands -- are the first on the chopping block. These Resource Management Plans (RMPs) provide stability for conservation of the public's wildlife and wildland resources while permitting uses such as livestock grazing, energy and mineral extraction, motorized recreation, etc. The federal Government Accounting Office issued a report this summer ruling that Congress could nullify RMPs that often took years of collaborative effort and expense to develop. RMPs were previously exempt from action under the Congressional Review Act. Additionally, the administering agency (BLM in the case of the RMPs) is barred from issuing substantially similar rules in the future without new legislative authorization.

Essentially, this says that Congress knows better than the stakeholders who enjoy, use, and benefit from, and moreover invested their time into shaping, the wise use of federal lands. Never mind! Your efforts to work together don't count! Like Trump's executive order that repealed the National Forest Roadless Rule and the Conservation and Landscape Rule -- which I posted about in September -- the current administration and Congress are intent on making wholesale changes to federal land management and conservation direction without input from all of us who own those lands -- our shared wealth as citizens.

Such efforts often escape the public's (and media's) attention. And that's likely the intent. Whether it's the dismantling/defunding of government science or deep-sixing RMPs, these actions create chaos and disenfranchise Americans' voices in the stewardship of our national heritage.

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