Biden administration moves to make conservation an equal to industry on US lands

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Biden administration on Thursday finalized a new rule for public land management that’s meant to put conservation on more equal footing with oil drilling, grazing and other extractive industries on vast government-owned properties.

Officials pushed past strong opposition from private industry and Republican governors to adopt the proposal.

The rule from the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management — which oversees more than 380,000 square miles (990,000 square kilometers) of land, primarily in the U.S. West — will allow public property to be leased for restoration in the same way that oil companies lease land for drilling.

The rule also promotes the designation of more “areas of critical environmental concern” — a special status that can restrict development. It’s given to land with historic or cultural significance or that’s important for wildlife conservation.

The land bureau has a history of industry-friendly policies and for more than a century has sold grazing permits and oil and gas leases. In addition to its surface land holdings, the bureau regulates publicly-owned underground mineral reserves — such as coal for power plants and lithium for renewable energy — across more than 1 million square miles (2.5 million square kilometers).

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