The Biden administration approved Friday a Wyoming land-use plan that’s been criticized by Republican state leaders — opposition that could doom the National Park Service’s purchase of a coveted parcel within Grand Teton National Park.
The record of decision issued Friday by the Bureau of Land Management accomplishes a BLM goal to finalize the Rock Springs Field Office resource management plan update before the Trump administration takes over next month.
The plan is a scaled-back version of an original proposal released last year that drew fierce opposition from congressional and state lawmakers for proposing conservation designations on more than half the 3.6 million-acre planning area in southwest Wyoming.
The final plan cuts back the number of originally proposed “areas of critical environmental concern” from 16 to 12, and it shrinks the territory covered by ACECs from 1.6 million acres to about 936,000 acres, while also maintaining BLM’s plan to protect a further 227,000 acres through other conservation designations.
