Hill Heat

On Tuesday, February 11, 2025, at 2:00 p.m., in Room 1324 Longworth House Office Building, the Committee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee on Federal Lands will hold an oversight hearing titled “Restoring Multiple Use to Revitalize America’s Public Lands and Rural Communities.”

Hearing memo

Witnesses:

• Eric Clarke, County Attorney, Washington County, St. George, Utah • Jim D. Neiman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Neiman Enterprises, Hulett, Wyoming • Tim Canterbury, President, Public Lands Council, Howard, Colorado • Dan Gibbs, Executive Director, Colorado Department of Natural Resources, Denver, Colorado [Minority Witness]

On January 27, 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order (E.O.) 14008, directing the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), and other federal agencies to preserve at least 30 percent of the country’s lands and waters by 2030.

The BLM’s enabling statute, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA), requires the agency to manage its 244 million acres of land and more than 700 million acres of subsurface mineral estate in accordance with multiple use and sustained yield (commonly referred to as a ‘multiple use mandate’).

On May 9, 2024, the BLM published its final “Conservation and Landscape Health” Rule (commonly referred to as the “Public Lands Rule”). The rule enables BLM to lease federal parcels under “restoration and mitigation” leases and change certain standards governing land-use decisions. Moreover, if BLM determines that uses previously authorized under FLPMA are incompatible with a restoration and mitigation lease, new land-health standards, or an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC), those uses would no longer be allowed.

President Biden created or expanded 12 national monuments and restored the boundaries of three others that Presidents Obama and Clinton had created. This included two national monuments that President Biden created in California during the last two weeks of his presidency: the 624,000- acre Chuckwalla National Monument and the 224,000-acre Sáttítla Highlands National Monument.

In April 2022, President Biden issued E.O. 14072, directing USDA and DOI to define, identify, and inventory “mature and old growth forests” on public lands and develop policies to protect those forests. The interagency mature and old growth initiative began in July 2022 with a Federal Register Notice and public comment period, resulting in roughly 4,000 comments and more than 100,000 signatures on various form letters from across the country. In April 2023, USFS published an “initial draft” seeking to define and inventory “old-growth and mature forests” and convened a “Definition Development Team.” The report identified 91 million acres of “old-growth and mature” forested lands on National Forest System (NFS) lands, comprising 63 percent of all land managed by USFS. USFS published a Notice of Intent to amend all 128 national forest land management plans to provide direction on managing, conserving, and stewarding old-growth forest conditions. On June 21, 2024, USFS released a Draft Land Management Plan Direction for Old-Growth Forest Conditions Across the National Forest System. USFS announced they were withdrawing the proposed amendment on January 7, 2025.

A selection of bills planned for consideration or already considered this Congress in the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Natural Resources include the following:

• H.R. 471 (Rep. Westerman), “Fix Our Forests Act”: Comprehensive, bipartisan legislation to restore forest health, improve resiliency to catastrophic wildfires, and protect communities by expediting environmental analyses and deterring frivolous lawsuits.
• H.R. 3397 (Rep. Curtis) (118th), “Western Economic Security Today (WEST) Act of 2024”: Withdraws the proposed Public Lands Rule and prohibits the BLM from finalizing, implementing, or enforcing any substantially similar rule.79
• H.R. 5499 (Rep. Miller-Meeks) (118th), “Congressional Oversight of the Antiquities Act”: Amends the Antiquities Act by requiring congressional approval for the designation of national monuments. If Congress does not approve the designation within six months, the monument cannot be redesignated by the President for 25 years.80
• H.R. 6085 (Rep. Hageman) (118th), To prohibit the implementation of the Draft Resource Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement for the Rock Springs RMP Revision, Wyoming: Restricts the Secretary of the Interior from finalizing, implementing, administering, or enforcing the RMP and Environmental Impact Statement for the Rock Springs RMP Revision, Wyoming.81
• H.R. 6547 (Rep. Boebert) (118th), “Colorado Energy Prosperity Act”: Restricts the Secretary of the Interior from finalizing, implementing, administering, or enforcing the Draft RMP or Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the CRVFO and GJFO RMPs.
• H.R. 7006 (Rep. Curtis) (118th), To prohibit natural asset companies from entering into any agreement with respect to land in the State of Utah or natural assets on or in such land: Restricts a NAC from entering into any agreement regarding land or natural assets in Utah.