Trump signs order rescinding 1970s off‑road vehicle directives, orders new rulemakings

President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order rescinding two longstanding presidential directives that have guided off-road vehicle use on federal lands since the 1970s and told agencies to begin rewriting the regulations tied to them.

The move does not, by itself, repeal existing agency rules or immediately open any specific federal lands to new motorized use. Instead, it starts a new round of rulemaking, a formal process agencies generally must follow under the Administrative Procedure Act before changing binding regulations or land-use plans.

According to the White House, Trump signed the order, titled “Removing Unnecessary and Counterproductive Restrictions on Access to Federal Lands,” on May 29, 2026. The order says, “Executive Order 11644 and Executive Order 11989 are hereby rescinded.” Those earlier orders, issued in 1972 and 1977, established federal policy for off-road vehicle use on public lands and directed agencies to designate where such vehicles could be used while applying standards meant to minimize environmental damage and conflicts with other users.

The new order directs the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture and the Tennessee Valley Authority to revisit the rules they adopted to carry out those earlier directives. Specifically, the White House text tells agencies to “initiate rulemakings to rescind or revise the regulations previously adopted to implement those Executive Orders.” In practice, day-to-day access on federal lands is governed through agency regulations, land-use plans and local designations, so any on-the-ground changes depend on what those agencies do next.

The White House said the older standards were “vague” and “subjective” and argued they had created barriers to energy and timber production, utility maintenance, permitting and access. The administration also cast the change as part of a push to restore what it called balanced land management and expand recreational and multiple-use access on federal lands. The order includes standard language saying it must be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to available appropriations, and that it does not create enforceable rights for private parties.

The White House also released a same-day fact sheet placing the order within a broader effort to roll back or revise land-use and environmental restrictions across federal lands, including moves involving National Environmental Policy Act procedures, the Roadless Rule and the Bureau of Land Management’s Public Lands Rule. But the order itself does not identify any specific national parks, national forests, Bureau of Land Management field offices, wildlife refuges or acreage that would change immediately. For now, the next concrete step is agency rulemaking, not an instant shift in access on the ground.