Overhaul of public lands grazing regulations seeks to cut public involvement

The regulations would also allow the BLM to handle low-level violations of grazing regulations more informally, avoiding potentially unnecessary fights between ranchers and regulators; clean up sections of the code that may be at odds with recent court decisions and laws; and offer the agency and ranchers more flexibility in how they manage the range, allowing for quicker decision-making responding to a local ecosystem’s needs. Tim Canterbury, president of the Public Lands Council, a ranching trade group, in a news release called the update “a massive step forward.” He said the existing regulations grew from the “cattle free by ’93” movement of the early 1990s that was hostile to ranching and aimed to rid public lands of livestock. “The resulting regulations all but ensured ranchers did not have the flexibility to take full advantage of the scientific and management advances that the industry has made over the last 35 years,” Canterbury said. Other groups working on rangeland management say the regulations go too far in the opposite direction, tipping the scales toward ranchers. They point to proposals allowing ranchers to continue business as usual if they appeal agency decisions limiting grazing, threatening Native American tribes’ ability to graze bison and enshrining highly subsidized grazing fees. (ProPublica and High Country News found that in 2024 the federal government charged ranchers $284 million below market rate for the use of public lands.) “We can expect considerably more places where cows and sheep are going to be and more damage,” said Josh Osher, public policy director of the Western Watersheds Project, a conservation group. “I think we see big impacts on wildlife.” The livestock industry influenced the regulatory rewrite from both outside and inside the Interior Department. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and Public Lands Council, two main trade groups, publicly celebrated their meetings with the secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture departments in the spring. Among their agenda items was a memorandum of understanding allowing the trade groups to give guidance to the departments, including on a “Grazing Action Plan” that involved updating regulations. The groups did not respond to requests for comment. (The Western Landowners Alliance, which represents conservation-minded ranchers and landowners, said it’s still evaluating the regulations.) Representatives of Native American tribes and conservation groups, meanwhile, told ProPublica and High Country News that the administration offered them no opportunity to provide input on the draft regulations before they were published. They also take issue with the process due to the involvement of Karen Budd-Falen, a high-ranking official in the Interior Department and a long-time grazing advocate whose family is in the ranching business. She served in the first Trump administration and was barred from discussing grazing policy due to potential conflicts of interest. But after rejoining the department, she received an ethics waiver allowing her to work on grazing policy. The Trump administration has sided with the ranchers in the dispute — first by revoking American Prairie’s permits and then by redrafting grazing regulations to mandate public lands livestock operations be “production-oriented,” potentially eliminating permits for herds used to revitalize ecosystems. Tribes fear they too could lose permits for the bison herds they manage to preserve cultural practices or restore the land. “We’re really concerned about this,” said OJ Semans Sr., a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and executive director of the Coalition of Large Tribes, which represents more than 15 tribes. “I’m just kind of confused about how badly it was written.” Ranchers have long complained that conservationists are quick to sue to prevent them from placing their herds on public lands, miring their businesses in litigation. The BLM’s updates would reduce green groups’ ability to challenge decisions. The agency proposes changing the definition of “interested public,” meaning those who have a say in rangeland management. Under the new proposal, the public would have to prove a “cognizable” interest in the grazing in question. The agency did not respond to a request to define its use of the word. But a former BLM higher-up said that would likely set a higher bar for who gets advance notice of agency decisions and their ability to comment on them. Environmentalists assume it means only those with a business interest would be allowed to influence agency decision-making. The new regulations would also remove a mandate that the BLM include the public in “consultation, cooperation and coordination,” the agency’s process of gathering feedback when preparing to take actions such as authorizing grazing. The update would significantly narrow who must be involved, staff said. Throughout the regulations, the agency proposed changes that would keep animals on the land. Mark Squillace, a law professor focused on natural resources at the University of Colorado Law School, noted that if a rancher appeals an unfavorable ruling, it is automatically paused, meaning the rancher can continue the very practices that had been found to be harmful. “That effectively invites everyone to appeal to avoid the decision,” Squillace said. “That is a disaster.” The new regulations also elevate cows’ status as firefighters, making it easier to place herds on public lands under the justification that they eat vegetation that could become fuel for wildfires. Nada Culver, deputy director of the BLM during the Biden administration, said that some provisions would make it more difficult for agency staff to tell ranchers to take animals off the land, hindering their ability to address overgrazing. And renewing permits to continue grazing would be even easier under the new regulations, she said. “The most text in this regulatory proposal is devoted to explaining why the public no longer gets to participate in pretty much every step of the process,” Culver said. The Trump administration has also prioritized restocking vacant areas, which may be without cows and sheep because they are far from a water source, they need time to recover from wildfire, or the agency is attempting to eradicate invasive species. Within months of President Donald Trump returning to the White House, political appointees instructed staff to build lists of every vacant plot that might be eligible for more livestock. “By the end of next year,” Budd-Falen said in her discussion with Lummis, “every single vacant allotment will be filled by a rancher.” This story was originally published by ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. 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