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Policy and Legislation

Taking the Public Out of Our Public Lands

In Brief: Safeguards designed to protect public lands are in danger! The Bush administration may begin more harmful activities on our public lands...

The Bush administration has issued a proposal that would affect the lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management. This proposal would eliminate many of the safeguards put in place to ensure our public lands are protected from harmful activities like logging, oil and gas drilling, and overgrazing. Because the Bureau of Land Management  (BLM) is responsible for managing over one-eighth of America’s total area (262 million acres, primarily in the West), the proposal would have widespread, lasting impacts on our national landscape.

Background

In August of 2007, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued a new policy that eliminates many of the preexisting rules that protect our public lands from harmful grazing, logging and energy development. Now these practices will be excluded from review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Typically, NEPA allows federal agencies to "categorically exclude" small specific projects from extensive environmental review -- Christmas tree cutting and mushroom picking being obvious examples. The long standing process for adopting a categorical exclusion is that the action in question must not have an "appreciable effect individually or cumulatively on the environment." Widespread grazing, oil and energy exploration, and salvage logging rarely meet that standard.

The following are just a small sampling of harmful practices that are now eligible for a categorical exclusion based upon BLM’s current rule change:

Oil and Gas Exploration

In 2002, BLM issued a permit that allowed sixty-thousand-pound "thumper trucks" to cross huge areas in search of oil and gas just north of Utah’s Arches National Park. These trucks, with tires 67 inches high and 34 inches wide, can leave a wake of deep ruts and crushed soil resulting in destroyed wildlife habitat.

In one particularly notorious incident, conservationists discovered that exploration conducted by an energy company had left permanent fifteen-inch deep ruts in the Utah region. This incident destroyed the cryptobiotic soil that protects this fragile desert, leading to increased erosion. According to the US Geological Survey, the damage could last for up to 300 years.

Given the revelations of severe damage, a federal judge ruled in favor of a petition filed by a number of groups resulting in the immediate halt of the exploration project. The judge found that the BLM had violated federal law by ignoring concerns raised by conservation groups, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Environmental Protection Agency and others.

Grazing

In the summer of 2005, an Idaho environmental group sued the BLM asserting that the agency’s decision to increase grazing in the Jarbridge region of southwestern Idaho, home to one of the most robust sage grouse populations in the nation, would cause irreparable harm to the environment.

In a series of agency authored Environmental Analyses (EA), BLM claimed that an increase in grazing would cause "no significant harm." The agency made their decision to permit future grazing despite the fact that these EA’s also established that "A sampling of the allotments in question found that up to 78% of the rangeland was found to be 'in Poor condition' and none of the acres met 'Good or Excellent condition.'"

Federal District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled against the BLM and issued an immediate halt to grazing. The Judge found that BLM was “like a horse with blinders” and that “nobody has looked at the big picture here.” If a similar situation arises in the future, the BLM will now have the power to simply issue a categorical exclusion, circumventing the process of having to ‘look at the big picture.’

Salvage Logging

In July of 2002, the High Roberts Fire burned almost 14,000 acres in the Malheur National Forest in Oregon. Immediately following, the Forest Service proposed to log over 200 acres of the burned forest, under what is known as a "salvage" log.

The agency determined that such an action could be 'categorically excluded' from NEPA because it involved the salvage of dead and/or dying trees on less than 250 acres. Fortunately, conservationists stepped in and demonstrated that many of the trees up for sale were actually alive and healthy and had diameters exceeding 21 inches.

Based on the conservationists' arguments, a district court judge ruled that the Forest Service had violated its duty by putting healthy trees up for sale.5 The BLM now wants to have the same discretion that the Forest Service has in concluding that salvaging dead or dying trees on less than 250 acres should be categorically excluded from environmental and public review.

From this one example, it becomes obvious that giving agencies the right to categorically exclude such activities could prove catastrophic to valuable public lands.

Specifically, the BLM would change the way it follows the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the primary law that forces the government to study possible environmental impacts of its actions before a final decision is made. Under NEPA, if the impacts of a project are deemed to be significant, alternative designs or approaches must be investigated to minimize damage, and these options must be shared with the public and the agency must afford opportunities for public comment.

Depending on the environmental impacts of a project, one of three “classes of action” are required by NEPA:

  • Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)- for projects that will have a significant effect on the environment. 
  • Environmental Assessment (EA)- for projects in which the magnitude of the environmental impact is not clearly recognized.
  • Categorical Exclusions (CE)- for projects that do not have a significant effect on the environment.

Categorical Exclusions determine that no environmental or public review is needed, and are usually applied to small, low-impact projects like building a trail. Under the new policy, however, they would be applied to many activities with serious environmental impacts, such as renewing unsustainable grazing permits and allowing fuel-reduction logging. In other words, BLM would no longer be required to conduct an environmental review or take public input for a variety of damaging projects.

Additionally, enormous thumper trucks, which are sixty thousand pound monster trucks with massive tires, would be allowed to travel unimpeded over vast areas in the quest to find oil and gas. These trucks leave a wake of deep ruts, compacted soil, and destroyed wildlife habitat, and could damage ancient ruins. 

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