I’ve gotten interested in the Rock Springs RMP -mostly from news stories like this..from Wyofile which seem to accept a framing of a) concerns about the RMP were those of ‘conservatives” and b) by redoing it, they are overruling local people. While all the facts are true (no doubt the Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society folks said those things) if you just read the Wyofile story, you would get a different impression from the Cowboy State Daily story I’ll reference later.
The highly anticipated and unusual redo comes just nine months after the Rock Springs resource management plan was completed in December. That plan set off a firestorm of criticism from conservative critics for being overly restrictive. Now, conservation groups lament that what they considered a widely supported compromise cemented under the Biden administration is at risk of a massive overhaul by the Trump administration.
There was a “widely supported compromise”.. no, there were phone calls from folks in DC.. please! And blowing off the Governor’s concerns (which makes me wonder a bit why is there a consistency review at all?) And not just conservatives were critics.
The BLM’s actions signal a disregard for conservation measures supported by 92% of public comments submitted during the planning process, as well as a majority of a local stakeholders group convened by Gov. Mark Gordon, the Sierra Club noted.
A curious person might wonder how many of those public comments were form letters, and how many of them were clicks on something like “if you don’t want people to destroy federal land…”. And shouldn’t we be a bit skeptical of what the Sierra Club says about the stakeholders group? We could look at another story in Western Ag Network and find what the Gov said:
Gordon said stakeholder comments and recommendations helped claw this document away from the BLM’s preferred, absolutely unworkable, Alternative B, which favored conservation over all other uses. Gordon said there is evidence that BLM considered local and cooperative input in places, but chose to force through national agendas in others.
Further, they seem to be reopening the decision, which I would think means that they haven’t disregarded any “conservation measures” yet. Like any RMP, it’s a hodgepodge of different decisions at different levels, mostly impenetrable to someone who doesn’t know the area, the process and decisions made in plans, nor the history. Interestingly in the Cowbory State Daily story, Stuble’s statement was specifically:
“The plan incorporates conservation measures supported by 92% of the public comments submitted on the draft plan, plus 85% of the recommendations made by a group of local community members that Governor Mark Gordon assembled to suggest improvements,” according to the statement.
While it’s portrayed as oil and gas folks vs conservationists (e.g. the bad guys vs. good guys), I checked out a letter (note that all the below are comments on the draft, which was changed before the final) from the renewable industry written by attorneys at . And this one by motorized folks.
This even though nobody knows what the designation of over 1.5 million acres of FO lands as ACEC will mean in practice. Consider a common complaint about ACEC as described by Senator Barasso and his colleagues in a letter to Director Stone-Manning:
… this designation creates more ambiguity around the BLM’s use of ACECs. The BLM national office has no accurate database of ACECs. There is no standard format for reporting information about ACECs within the agency or to the public. The BLM in recent years has used ACECs to restrict recreational demands, obliterate grazing rights, and hinder economic development in lower-income communities. The absence of a standardized format of ACEC data, while the BLM pushes for more land to be designated as ACECs, is already leading to a growing delta of distrust of what this draft RMP could mean for future BLM land decisions.Further concerns are raised when it is understood that BLM is in the process of implementing a rule that may dramatically redefine what an ACEC is and does. From the Conservation Health Rule (emphasis added):
As part of this rulemaking, the BLM proposes establishing procedures that require consideration of ecosystem resilience, landscape-level needs, and rapidly changing landscape conditions in designating and managing ACECs. The BLM may also revise the ACEC manual and develop an ACEC handbook to integrate the existing rule as well as the changes proposed in this rulemaking, if finalized, into policy. The BLM would thus provide additional guidance for how to incorporate ACECs into resource management decisions in a way that considers trade-offs among environmental, social, and economic values during land use planning.Since the release of the Draft EIS BLM officials have maintained that the designation of 1.5 million acres as ACEC would not impact any existing recreational opportunities. A September 9, 2023, article in the Cowboy State Daily includes a quote from Kimberlee Foster, field manager for the BLM’s Rock Springs office that captures this sentiment, “The most frustrating thing for us is all of the misinformation out there. We’re not closing any areas to all hunters or people walking their dogs or some of the other nonsense that has been out there.”
I think the motorized folks laid out their concerns very clearly. They don’t trust the Biden Admin. And why would they? The political appointees are from, and going back to, organizations that don’t support their uses (except to some extent, renewables, but then why was the draft of concern to renewable folks?). No, this decision doesn’t restrict you, but we’re asking you to buy a land designation pig in a poke from political appointees that are on record as not supporting your uses.
Then I ran across this letter from the Petroleum Association of Wyoming and the Western Energy Alliance:
The reaction to the release of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Rock Springs Field Office (RSFO) draft Resource Management Plan revision (DRMP) and Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) was one of shock that rippled through the state of Wyoming. Stakeholders’ input that had been collaboratively provided for 12 years was discarded. Never before had the BLM selected an extreme conservation alternative as the preferred alternative, one hastily developed in a single week and contrary to the balanced objectives envisioned by those involved in the multi-year stakeholder and cooperating agency process. The public’s reaction to the BLM’s decision was proportional and necessary.
*********
Sorry to say, when asked to “listen to the science” about a contentious land use issue I always know someone is trying to bamboozle. We know exactly who made the calls on this one and how much those folks “listened to the people who know the lands best.”
“The plan was a compromise between many different Wyoming communities who have weighed in over the years,” Sierra Club Wyoming Chapter Director Rob Joyce said in a prepared statement. “Now, before the agency even has time to implement [the 2024 plan], we’re being asked to weigh in again. It’s time to listen to the science and to the public and let the plan live.”
Conservation groups also worry about the Trump administration’s promises to expedite actions on federal lands.
“The work behind [the 2024 plan] demonstrated what’s possible when the government listens to the people who know these lands best and operates in a balanced and transparent way,” The Wilderness Society’s Wyoming State Director Julia Stuble said. “There is no reason to redo a plan finalized less than a year ago, after decades of local input,” Stuble said. “Rewriting the plan now, especially through this fast-tracked amendment process, will undercut years of community work and end up excluding the voices of those who live, work and recreate in southwest Wyoming.”
The Cowboy State Daily article quotes State Senator Hicks:
The Biden-era Alternative B blindsided many “cooperators” who had put years of work into an RMP that matched Wyoming’s values, he said.
The cooperators included local and state officials and various stakeholders who worked with the BLM Rock Springs office to draw up a plan that “tried to strike a balance between conservation and multiple use,” he said.
Alternative B came down from the BLM’s top brass, pushing the plan in a direction that many felt was skewed toward “preservation,” rather than multiple use and prudent conservation, he said.
Same information, same state, two different views you’d get from reading the articles. But the weird thing about this one for me is that we all know the decision came from DC politicals, so I wonder why Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society folks are going out on that particular limb? They know, we know, they know we know, we know they know we know, and so on.
The Sierra Club and Wilderness Society have to keep repeating their dogma. It’s what they do, it’s how they skew facts and make gains.
When Tracy Stone Manning was appointed to head the BLM I commented here that she had never been a friend to Recreation while working in Montana. While she says one thing, she does another, every time.
The exact same situation is happening with the Labyrinth Rims travel management plan in Moab. The BLM adopted an extreme alternative closing many of the most popular Jeep trails in Moab, following a clear political agenda set by SUWA and the Wilderness Society, driven by former Wilderness Society attorney Nada Culver who the Biden admin made a deputy security or something in the national BLM office. She had led litigation challenging the previous travel plans as not closing enough, so of course with her at the top levels of the BLM she ordered the Moab Field Office staff to close more roads than they ever would have done on their own.
Now the Trump admin has initiated a reconsideration of that travel plan at the request of motorized recreation groups like the Blue Ribbon Coalition, who were completely stomped on and ignored in the Biden admin’s decision making process, and is considering reopening some of the previously closed roads. And predictably, SUWA is crying foul, dastardly politics! They put out this statement on their website:
“This is a naked political decision to appease radical off-road vehicle groups and Utah politicans. Their vision for public lands in Utah is one where landscapes are covered in off-road vehicle routes, transforming quiet, wild places into motorized playgrounds and ignoring significant damage to cultural sites, desert waterways, and wildlife habitat,” said Laura Peterson, SUWA Staff Attorney. “With this announcement, the Trump Administration is taking steps to undo the 2023 Labyrinth Canyon travel plan, all the while turning a blind eye to the BLM’s own environmental analysis that shows just how destructive off-road vehicles have been in one of Utah’s wildest redrock landscapes.”
Oh so when the Biden admin installs a Wilderness Society attorney who had challenged the previous travel plan in the top ranks of the BLM, and she forces the local field office to give her all the road closures she always wanted regardless of whether they are necessary or not, that’s just following the science and not political at all. But when the Trump admin listens to motorized users and the Republican governor of Utah who both felt shafted by the previous decision and reconsiders it, that’s a “naked political decision.” Hypocrisy much?
Patrick, When organizations are losing power, perhaps they think that using more hyperemotive language and playing fast and casual with the truth will help. As a veteran of Colorado Roadless, I am used to shading and spinning from these same groups. But this goes over the previous cultural line.. similar to the partisan bar on the government websites.
I think of the importance of culture in terms of partisanship.. I think we need to recreate a less-partisan, non-lying, less name-calling, more respectful and more civilized public culture.
I think of the deToqueville quote “There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by the laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.”
It seems to me that both these instances, partisan banners and overt untruth-telling, show that perhaps we need an articulated public morality about politics, and otherwise they will slip-slide away.
Hmm. I never thought about hypocrisy the same way since I read this. https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/its-not-hypocrisy-youre-just-powerless
That is an excellent article with a lot of truth. Especially this line: “Fundamentally, Class A believes the purpose of power is to reward its friends and punish its enemies.”
It’s been enlightening seeing that sentence becoming increasingly true about public lands management policy since I started getting involved with it, despite that field’s veneer of being based on science and trying to benefit everyone under the multiple use framework. That line was never more obviously true than under the Biden admin. But now the other side holds power for the time being and is getting in on the action, reversing the rewards and punishments of the previous administration, and the cycle continues. It actually reminds me a lot of the famous “wheel” line from Game of Thrones: “This one’s on top then that one’s on top, and on and on it spins.” Indeed.
I don’t know what Game of Thrones is so perhaps my ignorance is bliss, though most everyone on this site has experienced, “…and on and on it spins.”
I attempted to paste a “snip” here [page 3, https://files.fasab.gov/pdffiles/handbook_sffas_59.pdf ] that illustrates the final timeline for federal land de-recognition (FY 2026) and inclusion of non-monetary annual auditing involving “multiple”-use classifications to be placed in one of three “predominate”-use sub-categories (conservation and preservation; commercial, and; operational) for federal owned properties. This is currently being coupled to endeavors of providing for new (natural resource) intangible asset definitions, over, under, through and across those federal lands.
This all began back in the late 1990’s but stemmed from legislation out of the 1970’s. Following is an excerpt of outfits involved up through a 2011 tech bulletin to give you an idea of where this might be leading, regardless of 2025 or future Presidential Executive Orders:
https://files.fasab.gov/pdffiles/handbook_tech_bulletin_2011_1.pdf
“A13.This broad announcement was followed by direct e-mailings of the press release to:
a. Relevant congressional committees: Senate Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources, Senate Committee on Finance, House Committee on Financial Services,
and House Committee on Natural Resources;
b. Public interest groups and think tanks: Alliance to Save Energy, the Brookings
Institution, the Cato Institute, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Citizens
Against Government Waste, The Concord Coalition, The Heritage Foundation,
National Parks Conservation Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, OMB
Watch, Resources for the Future, the Sierra Club, the Urban Institute, and World
Resources Institute;
c. Respondents to SFFAS 38 and related EDs (or their successors);
d. Agencies that manage and/or account for federal natural resources: Department of the Interior (DOI) Office of the Secretary; DOI Bureau of Land Management ; DOI Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement; DOI U.S. Geological Service; Department of Agriculture (USDA), Deputy CFO; and USDA Forest Service.”
Sharon, don’t ask me to explain this…it is convoluted enough to take more than a media or newspaper account. However, below are a few sites as far as the 1990’s progression goes when it boils down to heritage lands and stewardship lands.
Progression:
1996 – https://files.fasab.gov/pdffiles/handbook_sffas_8.pdf
1998 – https://files.fasab.gov/pdffiles/handbook_sffas_11.pdf
1999 – https://files.fasab.gov/pdffiles/handbook_sffas_16.pdf
&c.
Most recent handbooks: https://fasab.gov/accounting-standards/document-by-chapter/
JUNE 2025 latest handbook: https://files.fasab.gov/pdffiles/2025_FASAB_Handbook.pdf
It will be interesting when SFFAS 59 bumps up against MUSYA, among other, this (2026) fiscal year. Certainly appears to put USFS and BLM between a rock and a hard place.
One of the FASAB Board Members dissented, with:
” A41. Ms. Kearney dissents to the issuance of this Statement. She agrees with the goal of the Statement, which is to promote transparency into and accountability for the use of Government land. However, Ms. Kearney shares concerns expressed by major landholding agencies in response to the exposure draft and in subsequent discussions with the Board. Ms. Kearney’s concerns are that this Statement does not include an option to classify land acreage as having multiple uses and that this Statement would require reporting and auditing that has not been demonstrated to be cost-beneficial.
“Over two thirds of all of the Government’s land20 is required by law21 to be managed under principles of multiple use. Requiring agencies to specify a single predominant use for multi-use land would put large land management agencies in the untenable position of having to identify and report a predominant use for land that is inconsistent with the use of the land as specified in statute.
“At any particular time, land acreage may have multiple uses. It may be used simultaneously for ranching or logging (commercial), a wildlife habitat (preservation/conservation), and a staff office (operational). In addition, one or more of these uses can change over time, especially following catastrophic events, such as wildfires or hurricanes. Requiring agencies to assign a single predominant use to multi-use land would seem to frustrate rather than further the goals of transparency and accountability.
“Ms. Kearney appreciates that the Board intends to monitor implementation of this Statement, including the ability to classify land according to a single predominant use. Ms. Kearney also appreciates that the Board intends to assess the need for further guidance to address any implementation challenges that may arise prior to transitioning the reporting from RSI to basic information. However, Ms. Kearney shares concerns expressed by major landholding agencies that the intended transition from RSI to basic reporting together with the challenges associated with assigning a single predominant use would create a burden
on agencies that does not fully justify the cost of collecting, reporting, and auditing the information. Ms. Kearney shares these concerns particularly in light of: (1) the availability to the public of reliable Government land information (e.g., the Bureau of Land Management’s Official Federal Land Records website and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Protected Areas Database) and (2) the broad range of financial information that is currently reported as RSI under existing FASAB standards, including information about natural resources and
deferred maintenance and repairs.”
“All the the King’s Men and all the King’s Horses…”
“excluding the voices of those who live, work and recreate in southwest Wyoming.”
This is not a false statement by the Wilderness Society, nor would it be false if the other side were saying it about the current plan. Just different “thoses.” I’m looking for who is representing the “national” interest in these federal lands. I’d like to think that national elections contribute to that, but we know that nobody voted based on a land management plan. I do think it is problematic to deal with long-term land management issues by changing plans every four years. (Better than the Congressional Review Act, but not by much.)