A coalition of conservation groups is asking a federal judge to reject a request by the states of Utah and Wyoming to block the Bureau of Land Management from implementing its public lands rule while its legal challenge plays out in court.
The coalition argues in a motion filed Friday that a preliminary injunction is not legally warranted, mostly because the two states have failed to demonstrate that “absent a preliminary injunction, they will suffer any injury whatsoever — much less an irreparable injury” as a result of the rule that elevates conservation on par with mining, energy development, livestock grazing and other uses.
While Congress directed BLM through the Federal Land Policy and Management Act to manage the 245 million acres it oversees “under a balanced ‘multiple use’ approach,” the bureau “has often tipped the balance in favor of extractive and developmental uses, while failing to make clear by regulation that conservation is a use on par with other multiple uses,” according to the motion.
The rule simply “sets the record straight” on what it’s authorized to do under the FLPMA, “and finally ensures that BLM honor congressional demands to consider conservation values in the management of our treasured public lands,” according to the motion in opposition to the preliminary injunction request filed by attorneys for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Conservation Lands Foundation and Wilderness Society.
