Business Standard
The Interior Department is cancelling a rule that put conservation on equal footing with development, as President Donald Trump's administration eases restrictions on industries and seeks to boost drilling, logging, mining and grazing on taxpayer-owned land. The 2024 rule adopted under former President Joe Biden was meant to refocus the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management, which oversees about 10 per cent of land in the US. It allowed public property to be leased for restoration in the same way that oil companies lease land for drilling. But Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has said the rule could have blocked access to hundreds of thousands of acres (hectares) of land - preventing energy and timber production and hurting ranchers who graze on public lands. Supporters argued that conservation had long been a secondary consideration at the land bureau, neglecting its mission under the 1976 Federal Lands Policy Management Act. While the bureau previously issued leases for ..
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