US President Donald J. Trump signed H.J. Res 44, effectively overturning the US Bureau of Land Management’s Planning 2.0 rule. “[It] took control of land-use decisions away from states and local decision makers and gave it to Washington, and that’s not good,” the president said in a Mar. 27 White House ceremony where he signed three similar bills passed under the Congressional Resolution Act.
Trump acted after the US Senate approved the measure by a 51-48 vote after the House passed it earlier by 234 to 186 votes (OGJ Online, Mar. 7, 2017). BLM adopted the final rule, which was aimed at improving its planning process under the 1976 Federal Land and Policy Management Act, on Nov. 22, 2016.
“The rule we overturn today would have had far-reaching and damaging implications on public lands and our economy in Wyoming,” Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who introduced the original resolution, said afterward. “Planning 2.0 would have given the federal government and radical environmental groups control over land use and resource planning in our state, at the expense of local officials and stakeholders.”
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said, “This rule would have given even more power to the bureaucracy in Washington when what we need is the exact opposite. Reversing this rule is just one of many actions we will take to shift land management decisions back to the people who live in these areas and away from unelected, and in many cases unaccountable, bureaucrats.”
The American Petroleum Institute and Independent Petroleum Association of America, in comments they jointly submitted to the US Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee early last summer, said that the rule, which BLM proposed the previous February to establish more public involvement opportunities in its resource management planning process, could increase uncertainty instead (OGJ Online, June 21, 2016).
Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].
