Rescission of Conservation and Landscape Health Rule
Key claim: The Bureau of Land Management is fully rescinding the 2024 Conservation and Landscape Health Rule to restore multiple-use and sustained-yield principles and align with national energy policy.
Abstract
(Rule · Interior Department, Land Management Bureau) Through this final rule, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is fully rescinding the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule, issued as a final rule on May 9, 2024. This action restores balance to federal land management under the principles of multiple use and sustained yield by prioritizing access, empowering local decision-making, and aligning the BLM’s implementing regulations with statutory requirements and national energy policy.
Why this matters
Rescinding the 2024 Conservation and Landscape Health Rule removes a framework that elevated conservation to comparable standing with grazing, energy, and other uses on 245 million acres of BLM land, and eliminates the pathway for restoration and mitigation leases that competed with traditional permits. For ranchers and energy developers, the rescission preserves current permit priority and reduces regulatory uncertainty; for conservation interests, it removes a durable mechanism for landscape-scale restoration. Consumer and food-price effects are indirect but the change signals a broader shift in federal land-use priorities.