Will public-lands rules be changed?

BLM wants different way to protect from development

A proposed change to the way the Bureau of Land Management could protect public lands from resource development has conservation groups saying the BLM is trying to accommodate industry.

The immediate impact of the change, if approved, could be a denial of Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne's authority to stop uranium exploration on 1 million acres of public lands near the Grand Canyon by declaring an "emergency withdrawal" of that land.

"Nothing — not laws, not Congress and not the Grand Canyon itself — will impede this administration's accommodation of industry on our public lands," said Taylor McKinnon, director of the public-lands program for the Center for Biological Diversity, an Arizona-based conservation group.

A long-term effect of the proposal would be taking future interior secretaries and congressional committees out of the withdrawal equation. That could impact the number of resources that groups like the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance have in possibly fighting development of oil-shale resources on federal land in Utah.

"In the longer term, of course, you want to leave all of your options open," said SUWA attorney Heidi McIntosh.

The proposed change was published Friday in the Federal Register. A 15-day public-comment period has begun on the effort by the BLM to eliminate certain key regulations in the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act.

BLM spokesman Chris Paolino said the regulations are redundant and "muddy" the waters of a law that has ongoing constitutionality challenges.

The current regulations slated for removal from the books allow the interior secretary and either of two congressional committees to call for an emergency withdrawal of BLM land "to protect natural resources or resource values that otherwise would be lost."

Paolino said existing conventional regulations already provide a process for withdrawing federal land for the same reason and for a longer period — 20 years — than the three years of protection that an interior secretary or congressional committee could secure in a so-called emergency situation.

"So we can respond just as quickly through conventional means," Paolino said in a telephone interview. "We can actually get more protection to the land just as quickly."

When asked why the public-comment period on the proposed change was only 15 days, Paolino said it was one of the options the BLM chose. Public-comment periods for items appearing in the Federal Register can often last a month or more.

McIntosh said it appears the BLM is closing the door on an option to protect lands with "special values" by ditching a rule that Congress can use to do just that. "They're playing games with the whole rule itself," she said.

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