Reversing Biden’s Burdensome Public Lands Rule

On April 18, Biden’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) published a rule that fundamentally changes the multiple-use requirement and sustained yield mandate for BLM lands by undermining the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), impeding access to public lands for recreation, energy and critical mineral development, forest management, and more. 

This overly burdensome “Public Lands Rule” elevates “conservation” as a land use in the FLPMA, bypassing Congress, but fails to even define what could be considered conservation under a conservation land lease. Additionally, conservation is already practiced on public lands in Utah, while keeping lands accessible to families and small businesses for recreation and development. 

The Biden BLM’s rule would further the Biden Administration’s radical climate agenda at the expense of rural economies across Utah and the West, devastating these communities under the guise of conservation, threatening lands used to feed and fuel our country, and temporarily closing public access to lands for an indefinite time.

Access and the multiple uses of BLM land are an essential part of Western life and the backbone of rural economies across the country, sustaining over 783,000 jobs and producing around $201 billion in economic output. 

Americans in the West deserve better than the BLM’s bureaucracy. The people in Utah know how to manage these lands better than Washington bureaucrats who have never been to the West – Utahns have been preserving and protecting these lands for decades.

Rep. John Curtis’ legislation, H.R. 3397, the Western Economic Security Today Act of 2024, requires the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) director to withdraw their finalized rule regarding conservation and landscape health that would upend their multiple use mandate and restrict access to public lands, and also prevents the BLM from finalizing a similar rule. 

The BLM’s restrictive regulation only hurts communities in the West, favoring wealthy individuals and radical environmental groups over families and small business owners. House Republicans won’t stop fighting to ensure Utahns retain access to responsibly use and develop public lands.
 

Defending Hunters and Anglers’ Access to Recreation

Each year, hunters and fishers contribute over a billion dollars to conservation funding through excise taxes on recreational hunting and fishing equipment, like tackle and ammunition – the most cost-effective options being lead ammunition and fishing tackle. 

The raw material alternatives to lead tackle and ammo are significantly more expensive: Copper ammo is four times more expensive than lead ammo, and using tin for fishing tackle is over 10 times more expensive than using lead. 

Despite the substantially higher financial burden, the Biden Administration’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed banning the use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle on federal land – increasing costs on sportsmen and women and potentially resulting in a significant decrease in hunting and fishing participation.

This ban would affect millions of Americans who use traditional lead ammunition and tackle, as well as put wildlife conservation funding sources at risk, threatening conservation efforts instead of aiding them. 

Sportsmen and women know what it means to sustainably utilize America’s natural resources and great outdoors so that our lands are left in better condition than before – that’s the nature of hunting and fishing. Banning lead ammunition and tackle and making it harder for Americans’ to responsibly enjoy outdoor recreation will do nothing to help conserve our lands: It will only prevent conservationists who can’t afford to spend more on ammo or tackle from continuing healthy recreational use of our federal lands.

H.R. 615, the Protecting Access for Hunters and Anglers Act of 2023, introduced by Rep. Rob Wittman, stops the Biden Administration’s Department of the Interior and Department of Agriculture from banning lead ammunition or tackle on federal lands and waters for hunting and fishing, unless the regulation is consistent with state laws and supported by science.

House Republicans won’t stop defending Americans’ access to recreation from burdensome and counterproductive regulations.
 

Delisting the Recovered Gray Wolf Species

Across the lower 48 states, the gray wolf species has clearly recovered from their once extremely endangered status – recent scientific analysis has shown their population to be healthy and sustainable from a multitude of threats. As such, it is time for the species to be delisted and returned to state management.

In the Great Lakes region, which claims the largest concentration of gray wolves here in the lower 48 states, there are around 4,200 wolves, and the current population is well past delisting recovery goals. In fact, the delisting recovery goals for gray wolves “have been met since at least 1994,” according to Nathan Roberts, former wildlife biologist at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. 

Furthermore, the Obama, Trump, and Biden Administrations all took actions to delist the gray wolf: In 2013, the Obama Administration proposed delisting the species; in 2020, the Trump Administration published a rule removing the gray wolf as a protected species that was later vacated by a U.S. District Court; and currently, the Biden Administration is appealing the vacating of the Trump 2020 rule. 

While the last three presidential administrations agreed that it is time to delist the gray world, activist judges and radical environmentalists continue to block the removal of the gray wolf from the endangered species list. We should be focusing on allocating resources and taxpayer dollars to species that need to recover, not keeping an already recovered species on the list at the expense of more threatened species.

Additionally, allowing the recovered gray wolf population to continue to grow completely protected and unchecked poses an immediate threat to livestock, farmers, pet owners, residents, and more.

Rep. Lauren Boebert’s legislation, H.R. 764, the Trust the Science Act, would delist the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List in the lower 48 states and ensure this decision is not subject to judicial review. 

House Republicans are following the science, as many of these so-called “environmentalists” claim to be, and the science shows it is time to delist the gray wolf.