Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Once Again Rule the Day
One third of the country’s land belongs to and is managed by the federal government, mostly in the American West. For example, half of California is federally owned. Nearly two thirds of Idaho and Utah are federally owned, while 80 percent of Nevada is federal land. Sixty percent of Alaska—twice the size of Texas, plus New Mexico—is federal land. Moreover, some western counties have a greater percentage of federal land than western states. Nevada’s seventh largest, Clark County, is home to Las Vegas and 70 percent of Nevada’s residents; meanwhile, 90 percent of the county is federally owned.
Closer to my home, half of Wyoming is federally owned but 74 percent of Sweetwater County—Wyoming’s largest, the nation’s eighth largest, and larger than seven states—is federal land. As we say in Wyoming, when the federal government sneezes, folks in Rock Springs catch a cold. During the Biden administration, federal land managers did more than just sneeze; they lost their minds and Wyomingites exploded.
As we say in Wyoming, when the federal government sneezes, folks in Rock Springs catch a cold. During the Biden administration, federal land managers did more than just sneeze; they lost their minds and Wyomingites exploded.
There are different types of federal lands. Over the decades, for example, Congress preserved vast areas of federal land for single-use purposes. Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park, the nation’s first, and its “wonders…in their natural condition” were preserved as a “pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” Wyoming’s Bridger Wilderness, established when Congress enacted the Wilderness Act of 1964, is a place, by federal law, “untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” Likewise are national monuments, such as Devils Tower, the nation’s first, once again in Wyoming, where resource preservation is balanced with recreational access.
Federal lands not specifically designated by Congress, or under limited circumstance, by the President of the United States, to be preserved for single purpose use, are managed pursuant to multiple-use principles, which include the concept of conservation, commonly known as “wise use.” That has been the case with lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service since 1960 and for lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management since 1976.
Imagine the shock, surprise, and righteous screams from Sweetwater County when the BLM’s Resource Management Plan (RMP) for 3.6 million acres of the county, rich in natural resources used for decades for economic activity, were placed off limits by Biden officials in Washington, D.C. (Nobody in Wyoming blamed local BLM officials; they were getting orders from the White House.) Redefining conservation as preservation, Biden’s BLM decided to “conserve” lands used for energy production (oil, gas, and coal), mineral extraction (trona, a sodium-carbonate compound), livestock grazing, and recreation, including hunting and motorized access, by outlawing or strictly limiting those vital economic, lawful, and traditional uses and by creating vast de facto wilderness areas.
Fortunately, under President Trump, the BLM is rewriting its Rock Springs RMP, which is great news for Rock Springs, Sweetwater County, and Wyoming. Restoring multiple use across the 245 million acres of federal lands managed by the BLM in the West and Alaska will brighten the New Year for westerners.
