Free Republic

The new BLM rule introducing so-called conservation leasing will likely become the administration’s vehicle for locking up federal property. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is preparing to fundamentally reshape how public lands are managed without congressional approval. In March, the agency unveiled a sweeping proposal to establish a framework for “conservation leases” that places a newfound priority on preservation. The new Public Lands Rule presents a radical departure from the “multiple use mandate” Congress outlined for the agency in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA). New Rules Are a ‘Game Changer’.. FLPMA requires federal lands...

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) doesn’t seem very interested in hearing from constituents who live near public land. On Wednesday, the agency released its schedule for a tour of Western high mountain states during which BLM officials will present sweeping new regulations on public lands. The proposed Public Lands Rule, published at the end of March, threatens to undermine the multiple use mandate and jeopardizes grazing rights for ranchers. The bureau, which manages 245 million acres primarily across 12 Western states, is preparing to implement conservation leasing and cut off ranchers’ access to public lands.The states to entertain a...

An overflowing, angry crowd of nearly 200 area citizens filled the Roubideau Room of the Delta County Human Resources room beyond capacity with the door to the room staying open for those who could not fit in the tight space Wednesday evening. The apparent consensus was that new land use restrictions are being placed on their personal land and property, which would result in fees or not allow them to use their land for purposes they intended.. Before the public hearing regarding the land use code began, Planning Commission Chairman Tom Kay gave a brief presentation on the beginnings and...

A question must seriously be asked whether Jared Polis is interested in governing all of Colorado, or just the narrow strip that contains the vast majority of the state’s population. Polis has repeatedly angered the small band of hardy farmers and ranchers that make up Colorado’s second-largest industry by his insensitive slights and tone-deaf insults. It’s as if the governor pays lip service to agriculture one day and then slaps it in the face the next. Case in point: In February Polis ignored the recommendations of his own Department of Agriculture and appointed yet another animal welfare extremist to a...

VALENTINE, Neb. – “Land: see Snatch.” On first look, the Biden Administration’s “30 x 30” plan looks like a scheme cooked up by Hedley Lamarr, the main villain from Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles.” However, far from the comedic genius of the late Harvey Korman, the new Federal land grab is a serious threat to private property owners in the United States. And it’s moving fast.. Just a few days into office, President Joe Biden released a flurry of executive orders, among them being through Executive Order 14008, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad” (86 Fed. Reg. 7,619), which...

Bill Clinton’s land management rules and other liberal policies paved the way for future debilitating wildfires ... Zybach warned of potential disastrous wildfires shortly after Clinton signed a slate of rules in the mid-1990s that drastically reduced logging and road creation on federal lands. ... Shortly before leaving office in 2001, Clinton limited the ability of the United States Forest Service to thin out a dense thicket of foliage and downed trees on federal land... created a ticking time bomb ... “If you don’t start managing these forests, then they are going to start burning up. Thirty years later, they...

A 29-mile convoy through southern Oregon, followed by a rally, followed by a direct appeal to the White House, and a decision by the Department of the Interior. That’s what it took to open up irrigation water for farmers in southern Oregon last week. It all started with one of the biggest protests you probably didn’t even notice. In a June 9 press release, the Bureau of Reclamation announced that it had restored the 140,000-acre-feet of water originally promised to farmers in the Klamath Basin at the beginning of the season: Today, the Bureau of Reclamation confirmed the 2020 water...

Dan Love .. led Operation Cerberus ... Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, wants to rein in the law enforcement authority of the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service and is crafting legislation he says will either restrict or abolish their authority. Lee said Monday he aims to hem in powers he says were never envisioned under the Federal Land Management Policy Act of 1976. "Our federal land management agencies have drifted far from their intended purposes.. The BLM has expanded its operations far from public lands." ... The senator added federal land agencies exercise police powers on private land...

The Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s lasted less than a decade as a potent political force. But the sentiment that sparked the backlash over the management of federally owned lands in the West has never really gone away. And nowhere does the movement's heart beat more loudly today than in southern Utah. Specifically, in Kane County.But such actions are, he adds, "as much a political statement as a legal matter. It reflects federal-local tensions that have been part of the system from the beginning in the parts of the West where there is a heavy federal presence." Anti-government feelings in...

SANTA FE, NM – An executive order signed today by President Trump instructing the Department of the Interior to review designations of national monuments could hinder a proposed land exchange between the New Mexico State Land Office (SLO) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that would consolidate state and federal holdings within the Río Grande del Norte National Monument, creating one of the most preeminent recreational spots in the United States. Trump’s order instructs Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to examine designations dating back to 1996 to determine whether they were within the scope of a century-old law that allows...

County officials in western Colorado have regularly lambasted Planning 2.0 and this week, Garfield County joined in with five other counties in the western United States considering suing to halt the rule, which they have criticized as a central-planning measure. The BLM this month announced that the rule was final and on Monday, Garfield County agreed to spend as much as $40,000 with the Texas-based property-rights organization, the American Stewards of Liberty, to halt it. While Garfield County is taking an active role, Mesa County officials are looking to Congress and a Republican administration under President-elect Donald Trump to deal...

The United States Forest Service severely damaged a forest road and trail in Northwestern Idaho earlier this month, raising serious questions about the agency’s ability to care for federally-managed lands. During the first weekend in June, several members of Northwestern Gold Prospectors Association (NWGPA) planned to attend a gathering to prospect private claims in the Bedrock Gulch and Eagle Creek areas. When the prospectors arrived, Forest Road 152 was blocked with cement barricades and hundreds of felled trees. ... Photographs from that day show large logs laid crosswise and laterally on the trail, covered with hundreds of large pine branches...

$16 million in fines dropped, threats canceled. A Wyoming rancher threatened by the Environmental Agency with $16 million fines for getting a state permit and building a stock pond on his ranch has reached a settlement that will have the fines go away and he’ll keep his stock pond. WND reported in 2015 on a lawsuit filed on behalf of Fort Bridger, Wyoming, rancher Andy Johnson by officialsl with the Pacific Legal Foundation seeking to vindicate his property rights. The lawsuit explained federal law clearly exempts stock ponds from the rules of the EPA, which had filed a compliance order...

If you like to hunt and fish you better pay attention to this proposal. The feds are creating their own little fiefdoms on Alaksa refuge lands. The proposed regulations grant too much authority to refuge managers. They literally have dictatorial powers. It certainly sets up the right environment for corruption. They are even trying to make it difficult for the public to testify. The environmental extremists showed up at the Fairbanks meeting in force. It appears their plan is to get these regs passed and install their man as manager. (It makes one wonder what the Bundy's issues were in...

California, Oregon and the federal government are working on a way around congressional barriers to the removal of hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. The states, the U.S. Interior Department and the owner of the dams, PacifiCorp, announced Tuesday that they have agreed in principle to pursue removal through the federal dam relicensing process. The move comes after a complex deal to decommission four hydroelectric dams and restore portions of the historic salmon river fell apart when Congress failed to act on a crucial piece of the pact by a Dec. 31 deadline. Republican members of Congress and local elected...

Environmental organizations that offered more than 150,000 comments calling on the U.S. Forest Service to reject an agreement to allow additional mining in the North Fork area said the response demonstrated strong public opposition. More like "stuffing the ballot box," said an industry spokesman who noted that the environmental opposition would undermine a bargain fashioned over five years of talks. The Forest Service proposes reinstating the North Fork coal-mining exception to the Colorado Roadless Rule. The exception would allow Arch Coal to extend the West Elk Mine near Somerset below the roadless area. The roadless exemption would allow construction of...

A growing number of state organizations seek to remedy what they consider negligent policies and shoddy oversight of public land on the part of federal agencies. Under the umbrella name Transfer of Public Lands, the movement offers a solution to the problem that is simple in concept: transfer ownership and management of public lands administered by federal agencies to equivalent state agencies. These agencies, being accountable to governors, state legislators and citizens, will manage the public lands in a more conscientious, cost-effective way. ... Unlike states east of the Continental Divide, public lands in Western states such as Washington and...

The agreement never sold well either in solidly Republican Klamath County or on the California side of the border, where the idea of removing dams and tilting the scale toward environmental and tribal purposes was regarded suspiciously. "They try to say the community is for it, and it's not true at all," said Klamath County Chairman Tom Mallams, noting that almost all successful candidates in the area run against the agreement. ... Among western Republicans, the idea of removing the dams has been viewed with great suspicion, even though the aged structures are relatively small hydroelectric producers, aren't used for...

LAS VEGAS - Private land overlooking the secret base at Area 51 has officially been taken from the owners and transferred to the United States Air Force. Last month, the U.S. Air Force condemned the Groom Mine property when the family who owns it rejected a government buyout they felt was unjust. The I-Team broke the story of the family's fight with the government. The Sheahan family, which until now owned the mine, knew they faced an uphill fight. They also expected the government would probably take the land through eminent domain even though the Sheahan's owned it since Abe...

A U.S. judge on Friday approved a deal between conservationists and Montana officials to restrict road-building and logging in roughly 22,000 acres of state forest lands that make up core habitat for federally protected grizzlies. The agreement resolves a lawsuit brought by conservationists after the state had sought to open 37,000 acres , mostly in the Stillwater State Forest, to timber harvesting despite what environmentalists said would be the destruction of prime grizzly bear territory. ... U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy in a decision last year found the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act by...