BLM Finalizes Rollback of 2024 Public Lands Rule

The Bureau of Land Management has finalized a nationwide rollback of the 2024 Public Lands Rule, removing a conservation-focused framework from how the agency manages roughly 245 million acres of federal land.

In a final rule posted Monday for public inspection and scheduled for publication Tuesday in the Federal Register, the agency said it is “fully rescinding the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule,” the Biden-era regulation finalized in May 2024. The change takes effect 30 days after publication.

The practical effect is broad. The rollback strips out the 2024 rule’s regulatory framework for conservation, restoration and landscape health across BLM lands, which span vast stretches of the West and other parts of the country. It removes tools and standards that had given those goals a more explicit place in agency planning and decision-making.

Specifically, the final rule eliminates restoration and mitigation leasing provisions, rescinds the land health subpart and returns regulations for Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, known as ACECs, to the pre-2024 framework. ACECs are places identified for special management because of important historic, cultural, scenic or wildlife values.

BLM said the 2024 rule “inappropriately elevated conservation as a discrete ‘use’ of the public lands,” adding procedural burdens and litigation risk. The agency said the rescission better reflects the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the law that directs BLM to manage public lands for “multiple use and sustained yield” — a standard that requires balancing different uses of public land.

“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,” the agency said in the rule’s preamble.

The Public Lands Rule was one of the Biden administration’s most significant public-land management changes. Finalized on May 9, 2024, it created an explicit regulatory structure for conservation, restoration and landscape health in BLM planning, rather than addressing those concerns only indirectly through other land-use decisions.

The Trump administration moved to undo that framework in September 2025. In the final rule, BLM said it received 138,161 comment submissions on the proposed rescission, including 129,029 duplicative form letters and 9,132 unique submissions.

The agency framed the repeal as a return to its longstanding statutory mandate. Under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, BLM oversees public lands for a range of uses, including conservation, recreation and development, while aiming to sustain those lands over time. The administration argues the 2024 rule departed from that balance by treating conservation as a stand-alone use within the regulations.

Conservation groups immediately criticized the move. Defenders of Wildlife, a national advocacy organization focused on habitat and species protection, said the repeal comes at a time of mounting environmental stress on public lands.

“Today’s repeal of the Public Lands Rule abandons progress at the same moment climate change, chronic drought and accelerating habitat loss demand better stewardship from BLM,” said Maddy Munson, senior planning and policy specialist for federal lands at Defenders of Wildlife.