Trump Administration scraps Biden-era public lands rule in push for energy development

By THE ALASKA STORY

May 12, 2026 – The Trump administration has officially rescinded a destructive Biden-era public lands regulation that tilted federal land management heavily toward conservation and away from energy production, mining, grazing, and timber development.

In a final rule was published Tuesday by the Bureau of Land Management. In it, the agency announced it is fully repealing the 2024 “Conservation and Landscape Health Rule,” a Biden administration policy that created new mechanisms for conservation leasing and expanded the role of restoration and mitigation management on federal lands.

The repeal takes effect June 11.

The rule change marks a major policy reversal by the Trump Administration and aligns with President Donald Trump’s broader push to expand domestic energy production and reduce federal regulations affecting oil, gas, mining, timber, and other resource industries.

In its published explanation, BLM said the Biden-era rule “inappropriately elevated conservation as a discrete ‘use’ of the public lands” and created leasing mechanisms that “threatened to restrict productive use” of federal lands.

The agency argued that the 2024 rule imposed unnecessary complexity on land-use planning and permitting while creating legal uncertainty for industries operating on federal land.

“By rescinding the 2024 Rule, the BLM eliminates mechanisms—such as restoration and mitigation leasing—that threatened to restrict productive use of the public lands,” the agency wrote.

The now-repealed Biden rule had allowed outside groups and nonprofit organizations to lease public lands for restoration and conservation purposes, a concept environmental groups praised as a way to improve habitat resilience, watershed health, and address unproven climate change issues.

Energy developers, ranchers, miners, and Western lawmakers pointed out that the rule effectively gave environmental groups one more tool to lock up federal lands from development.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum had criticized the rule last year, warning it could limit access to lands traditionally used for oil and gas drilling, timber harvesting, grazing, and mining. The process of unwinding the rule began in October.

The BLM’s repeal restores older regulations governing Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, or ACECs, back to the framework used since 1983. The Biden era rule created a “presumption” that actually favored conservation designations and temporary restrictions before land-use planning had been completed.

Conservation efforts can still continue under existing federal authority without what BLM describes as “prescriptive mandates or rigid timelines.”

According to the Federal Register notice, the BLM received more than 138,000 public comments during the rescission process. About 129,000 were form letters, while more than 9,000 were unique submissions.

The repeal is generally welcomed in Alaska and other Western states where large portions of land are federally managed. Over 61% of Alaska’s land is owned by the federal government and have been increasingly unavailable for oil and gas leasing, mining access, timber harvests, and infrastructure development under the Biden rule.

For Alaska, the rescinding of the rule returns the federal land to “multiple use and sustained yield.”