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The Bureau of Land Management wants to eliminate environmental reviews from land management plans. A document acquired by Bloomberg shows the BLM intends to propose removing National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements from new land use planning regulations across public lands—the plans are updated about every 20 years. Currently, the government is required to conduct analyses and consult with the public when developing new regional management plans, but the Trump administration's proposed NEPA rollbacks could set the stage for prioritizing lands for fossil fuel development for decades.
Additionally, the BLM is considering reducing public comment periods and changing how it establishes and identifies lands for conservation designations. If the agency moves forward with the changes, it's likely to be challenged in court. Mark Squillace, law professor at the University of Colorado, said, “If the BLM proceeds with this proposal, it will certainly be challenged, and I suspect that, like the [Forest Service], the BLM will lose."
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The problem is the elk population is no longer resilient. They’ve been putting up with all the insults and injuries of development and human activity throughout the ’80 and ’90s and finally it reached that point where all that stretch was taken out.”
