The threat to public lands continues with BLM plans to significantly reduce protections and administration plans to gut the agency itself.
In the past four months, BLM has released six draft plans covering more than 20 million acres in Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon. The Pew Charitable Trusts’ review of these plans reveals that in each of the alternatives preferred by the agency, BLM significantly reduced protections that have been in place for decades and proposed minimal new safeguards for only a fraction of 1 percent of the areas. In addition, BLM proposes opening vast acres in these planning areas to energy and mineral development.
Two former Bureau of Land Management directors say plans to move the agency’s headquarters to Colorado are an early step toward abolishing the entire agency and transferring millions of acres of federal land to the states.
LINK (via: Bloomberg)
