On December 23, 2020, Tyler Welti co-authored “Can BLM Remove NEPA from Land Use Planning?” in Trends, the American Bar Association Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources bimonthly electronic newsletter of current developments. The following is an excerpt:
The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) organic act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), charges the agency with managing public lands on the basis of “multiple use and sustained yield.” As the U.S. Supreme Court explained in Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), “‘[m]ultiple use management’ is a deceptively simple term that describes the enormously complicated task of striking a balance among the many competing uses to which land can be put, ‘including, but not limited to, recreation, range, timber, minerals, watershed, wildlife and fish, and [uses serving] natural scenic, scientific and historical values.’” To guide this balancing act, BLM develops blueprints for land management, known as resource management plans (RMPs), with public involvement and detailed environmental review pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).