On Tuesday, Congress repealed the Bureau of Land Management’s 2016 Planning 2.0 rule using, for the second time, the 20-year-old little known Congressional Review Act. Doing so was a gross mis-use of Congressional authority and an assault on our democratic process.
Planning 2.0, developed over three years with extensive stakeholder input, modernized inefficient 1980s-era planning regulations that drive land use planning processes, specifically Resource Management Plans, often decades in the making. The new rule was designed to involve stakeholders earlier in the process, increase public participation across political jurisdictions and arrive at a more collaborative and quicker outcome in decisions around the use and conservation of BLM-managed public lands.
Unfortunately, Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Cortez), a co-sponsor, voted in early February to use the CRA to repeal the rule and Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma), joining his colleagues Tuesday in a 51-48 Senate vote, did as well. This action, mostly reflexive against what a Republican-controlled Congress and its industry supporters perceived to be executive overreach by the Obama administration, ironically moved the decision-making power to Washington, D.C., and is exactly what rule critics, including Gardner, railed against.
By using a brash tactic like the CRA to undue a rule developed with broad public involvement, members of Congress who know little about Western land and resource management planning made a decision that will have lasting effects on Westerners.
Using the CRA is not just an example of bad government; its use ignores public involvement and by statute closes the door on developing similar rules in the future. It is absolutely the worst way to address making changes to public policy. And that is the point; opponents and proponents agreed that the rule needed work.
Last month, the Western Governors Association requested Congress to direct the BLM to reexamine the final planning rule in collaboration with western states. That option is now off the table and we are stuck with an outdated planning rule all parties have complained about for decades.
To head back to the drawing board is a flagrant waste of public resources and an insult to the democratic process. The rule should have been revisited, not repealed.
