BLM Revokes Conservation Rule to Prioritize Oil and Gas Extraction

The Bureau of Land Management just pulled the plug on a rule designed to protect public lands, and the immediate reaction from Washington is that it’s about restoring balance. But if you look at the map of Colorado’s 8.3 million acres of BLM territory, the move looks less like a correction and more like a reset button for extraction.

The Trump administration officially revoked the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule on Tuesday, May 12. The rule, implemented in 2024 under Joe Biden, had elevated conservation to equal footing with energy development, grazing, timber, and recreation. Now, conservation is back to being just another item on the list, not a guiding principle.

"The Bureau of the Interior has officially killed a two-year-old Bureau of Land Management rule that gave conservation the same priority as energy development," the reporting notes.

It sounds technical, but the stakes are visceral for folks who rely on these lands for everything from their property values to their weekend hikes. Around 81% of BLM lands are already open to oil and gas drilling. This rule was the only thing standing between that status quo and a formal mandate to prioritize keeping those lands healthy.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum argued the rule was the problem. He claimed it placed "an outsized priority on conservation or no-use" at the expense of other uses. In a September news release, he said the rule "had the potential to block access to hundreds of thousands of" acres for development. The administration’s take is that the Biden-era rule introduced "unnecessary complexity and placed operational constraints on the BLM’s planning and permitting processes."

They’re not wrong about the complexity. The rule formalized regulatory tools for restoring degraded lands, requiring decisions to be backed by science, data, and Indigenous knowledge. It demanded that the BLM maintain habitat connectivity and old-growth forests. That takes time. That takes paperwork. And in a bureaucracy that often moves at the speed of a permit application, that’s a bug, not a feature.

But here’s the counterintuitive part: killing the rule doesn’t just remove complexity. It removes the requirement to consider the long-term health of the land before approving the next mine or well.

The Federal Register post states the decision "restores balance to federal land management under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976." That 1976 law tasked the BLM with managing recreation, range, timber, minerals, watershed, wildlife, fish, and scenic values. It required balancing these uses to avoid permanently impacting land productivity. But it didn’t explicitly list conservation as an official use until this rule was implemented.

So, technically, the BLM is just going back to its original charter. But practically, it’s shifting the weight.

Supporters of the revocation — agriculture, mining, and oil and gas groups — are cheering. They see the rule as overly restrictive and economically harmful. They want access. They want the permits to move faster.

Conservationists, environmental groups, and recreation stakeholders are sounding the alarm. They warn that killing the rule will negatively impact cultural, biological, and recreational resources. More importantly, they argue it threatens the agency’s ability to reduce risks associated with climate change.

Think about that last point. The BLM manages 245 million acres in the U.S., including 8.3 million acres in Colorado. It also manages 700 million acres of subsurface mineral estate nationwide. That’s a lot of dirt and rock to keep in check. Without the conservation mandate, the default isn’t "protect." The default is "use."

The question is whether locals can afford that shift. When you’re driving down Highway 6 or looking out over the Grand Junction valley, you’re seeing the result of that balance. Or lack thereof.

The data supports the concern. The rule was in place for two years. It provided a framework. Now it’s gone. The BLM still has to manage the land, but the compass has been flipped.

Burgum’s team believes this restores the true intent of the 1976 law. But critics argue it ignores the reality of what’s happening on the ground. The rule wasn’t just about stopping development; it was about ensuring development didn’t destroy the very resources that make the land valuable in the first place.

Time will tell, but the immediate impact is a clear signal to industry. Conservation is no longer a priority. It’s an option. And in the world of federal land management, options are often the first things to get cut when budgets tighten or politics shift.

As one observer put it, the rule "had the potential to block access to hundreds of thousands of" acres. Now, those acres are open. The question is what happens to them next.