Congress Targets Public Lands: Major Protections at Risk

With Congress back in session, members of the House of Representatives are working to strip away established protections for large swaths of public land in Montana, Alaska, and North Dakota. This latest threat to public lands would strike down existing Resource Management Plans—also known as RMPs—on nearly 15 million acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). According to conservation groups, the move has big implications for hunters and anglers.

The House is using what’s known as the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to eliminate RMPs in Alaska’s Central Yukon (including parts of the Brooks Range), Montana’s Powder River Basin, and more than 58,000 acres across North Dakota. These RMPs were put in place by the BLM after extensive public engagement. They guide the protocols that the agency uses to handle everything from oil and gas development to grazing and hunting access.

“If an RMP is repealed, management might revert to older, potentially outdated RMPs, which predate current RMPs,” wrote Dave Willms, Associate Vice President for the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), in a recent blog post. “For example, North Dakota’s old RMP was adopted in 1988—when no one used things like cell phones, handheld GPS devices, or the internet. These older plans may not account for modern scientific understanding, or current demands for land use.”

According to Willms, repealing these three RMPs could cause uncertainty for hunters and anglers. Habitat management could unexpectedly change, for example, and there could be permitting delays for certain types of recreational activities. “Without a clear, modern plan, the BLM could be forced into ad-hoc decisions,” he added, “making it harder to ensure consistent, science-based stewardship of the lands and wildlife we depend on.”

What’s at Risk?

By using the Congressional Review Act to repeal RMPs in Montana’s Powder River Basin, Congress would pave the way for renewed coal mining efforts on about 1.7 million acres of BLM near Miles City. According to NWF, the area is home to prime elk, mule deer, and pronghorn habitat—along with upland bird hunting opportunities and warm water fishing on the Tongue River.

Repealing the Central Yukon RMP in Alaska would put the management of 13.3 million acres of public land in limbo. “This plan covers management of portions of the central Yukon River watershed and the Dalton Highway utility corridor,” the BLM wrote in a November 2024 press release, after finalizing the RMP. “The new RMP is the product of more than a decade of discussion and input from the public, Tribes, cooperating agencies, and stakeholders. It emphasizes important habitats for several fish and wildlife species and other subsistence resources that are vital to rural Alaskans, including Alaska Native communities.” Key game species in this area include caribou, Dall sheep, and Dolly Varden.

North Dakota’s BLM lands can offer good hunting for mule deer, whitetail, pronghorn, waterfowl, and upland bird species like pheasants. As Willms notes, the RMP that Congress is hoping to strike from that state’s BLM lands replaced a plan written in 1988. If they’re successful, the BLM would suddenly be reliant on a 37-year old plan that hasn’t been modernized. “Oil and gas permitting and grazing lease administration could become less predictable,” he wrote, “and vital conservation efforts that protect wildlife and habitat could be undermined.”

The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership is raising red flags as well. According to Joel Webster, TRCP’s Chief Conservation Officer, the move will set old, outdated RMPs in stone and cripple the BLM’s ability to create updated plans in the future. “This burns down the ability of the BLM to do its job,” Webster tells Field & Stream. “Imagine the BLM trying to manage these lands in 2050 and being stuck with a land use plan from 1988. That is the trajectory we are on if this passes. Oil and gas, land exchanges, grazing, recreation—everything would be stuck in place. It doesn’t matter if you’re an oil and gas developer or an environmentalist, everybody loses with this outcome.”

There are also concerns that revoking existing RMPs, and reverting to 30 to 40 year old plans, could put public land parcels on the auction block. That’s because old RMPs used outdated mapping technology to identify lands that were suitable for “disposal”—the term that the BLM and other land management agencies use when referring to proposed sell-offs of federally managed public lands. These older plans relied on imprecise ownership boundaries and may have highlighted lands that are no longer considered suitable for sell-offs.

Today’s updated plans, by contrast, use modern GPS technology when pinpointing BLM parcels that may or may not be suitable for sell-offs. Given Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s recent attempt to sell off millions of acres of BLM and USFS lands, this is worth paying attention to. “I think that cuts both ways,” notes Webster. “I think there are lands that are suitable for community development that they’ll never be able to dispose of under old plans, and there are going to be lands that should be taken off the list that they won’t be able to take off the list.”

For a thorough explanation of what using the Congressional Review Act to strike down the BLMs Resource Management Plans will look like for public land management going forward, read Willms’ full blog here. He also touches on the ways in which RMPs can be amended by the Department of Interior, with stakeholder engagement, rather than Congress simply scrapping an entire plan using the CRA.

The House passed their resolutions striking down the three RMPs on September 3. Now it goes to the Senate floor and then ultimately to the President’s desk—if the Senate advances it. And since it would be the first time the CRA has ever been used to strike down an RMP, it could set a precedent that leads to more management plans being eliminated by Congress year after year. If you’d like to weigh in, contact your Senator by calling the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.