Friday, SEPTEMBER 12, 2025 |
Wyoming’s congressional delegation, on Thursday, applauded a move by the Trump Administration to rescind the Biden-era public lands rule.
The rule was finalized in the last year of Biden’s Administration when his clarity of mind became a subject of attention and debate. The public lands rule was finalized in April of 2024. Two months later in June, during a presidential debate with Donald Trump, Biden appeared to lose his train of thought at times. At times, his sentences would trail off into incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo.
Given Biden’s obvious mental decline and frequent vacations where he was photographed sleeping with his mouth open on beaches, many of the White House decisions during that time are receiving a second look. They were not inconsequential. Among them are the public lands rule which Biden signed in the weeks leading up to the presidential debate with Trump.
In the eyes of critics, the rule has the potential to block access to hundreds of thousands of acres of multiple-use lands.
Wyoming Senator John Barrasso described the rule as, quote, “a direct attack on our way of life. The Trump Administration is right to rescind this outrageous rule.” Barrasso went to court over the rule this year.
Senator Cynthis Lummis described the public lands rule as a “direct hit to the west, threatening to shut down hundreds of thousands of acres of working land and hurt the livelihoods of hardworking Wyoming families who’ve depended on these lands for generations.”
Lummis said the rule was the result of “leftist Washington bureaucrats.”
Putting the rule into federal law would have locked up federal lands, blocked energy production, hurt the timber industry, and shut out ranchers.
Representative Harriet Hageman said it would have turned multiple-use federal lands into a policy of no-use. Hageman described this week’s plan to rescind the rule as “a huge win for Wyoming.” Hageman said removing the rule will secure grazing rights, bolster energy production, and protect rural economies from what she described as “overreaching, absurd mandates.”
The Public Lands Rule was finalized by the Bureau of Land Management on April 18, 2024. It was published in the Federal Register on May 9 of that year. The rule became effective on June 10, 2024.
Plans to rescind the rule have drawn criticism from a variety of groups that had lobbied for it. As originally crafted, the Biden-era rule had placed environmental protection on par with mining, ranching, and timber cutting on lands overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. As originally written, the rule allowed the BLM to lease land to non-profit organizations for the sole purpose of restoration and conservation.
When it was published in 2024, lawmakers in Utah and Wyoming filed a lawsuit to repeal the rule, arguing that it “represents a sea change in how the BLM will carry out its mission moving forward.”
In February of 2025, Senator Barrasso filed a lawsuit to repeal the rule, also arguing that it represented “a sea change in how the BLM will carry out its mission moving forward.”
In Thursday’s announcement from the U.S. Department of Interior, Secretary Doug Burgum said he is committed to restoring balance in federal land management “by prioritizing multiple-use access, empowering local decision-making and supporting responsible energy development, ranching, grazing, timber production, and recreation across America’s public lands.”
