BLM's new rules, mission change significant for New Mexico

Apr. 27—Anyone passing through a Bureau of Land Management expanse in New Mexico is as likely to encounter cows and oil rigs as a well-maintained, scenic landscape.

Since the BLM was founded shortly after World War II, its emphasis has been to make its lands available for extraction — oil and gas drilling, logging, mining, grazing — with conservation receiving secondary consideration.

But the federal agency recently revamped its overarching mission with a new rule aimed at putting conservation on more equal footing with energy development and resource extraction — a change that's sure to affect BLM's 13 million acres in New Mexico.

The rule also opens BLM lands to restoration and mitigation leasing to fix damage from commercial activities, enhance wildlife habitat and offset an intrusion like a new power line.

As could be expected, the new rule has drawn applause from conservationists, who say it's much needed to protect the environment in the face of climate change, while irking fossil fuel advocates, who argue it's more federal overreach that will interfere with producing the energy on which people rely.

"Of course, industry is going to be upset about anything that makes them rein in their extractive ways," said Melissa Troutman, climate and energy advocate for Santa Fe-based WildEarth Guardians. "We should not be using our public lands to exacerbate the climate crisis any more than they already have."

In 1976, conservation was added as a guideline for how BLM should manage its lands, but the agency gave no significant attention to environment oversight until the 1990s, and extraction remained the priority.

Known as the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the law called for BLM to establish multi-use and foster a sustainable yield for future generations, whether it's drilling for oil or cutting down trees, all while establishing scenic and recreational areas and protecting water quality and wildlife habitat.

Conservation mandates for BLM already were written in federal law, but the agency's new rule is restating them in a more emphatic way, said Sally Paez, staff attorney for New Mexico Wild.

"[The law] has always required them to balance all of this stuff, and it has said the highest economic use is not the purpose, it's not the sole goal," Paez said. "I think what this [new rule] does is it could — and it should — trigger a little bit of a culture shift within the agency."

The rule provides more guidance for how the agency should carry out the federal law, Paez said. It also gives environmental groups like hers a more concrete rule to which they can point when calling into question whether BLM is balancing conservation with extraction, she said.

A better conservation approach, such as considering harmful effects of drilling, would apply not only on BLM lands but also in sensitive areas bordering those sites, Paez said. One example is Otero Mesa, a grassland in the Permian Basin that's home to pronghorn antelope, black-tailed prairie dogs and many bird species.

Roughly 90% of BLM lands are open to fossil fuel leasing across the country, including in New Mexico, where oil production is the second-highest in the nation. And a 2017 Congressional Research Service report said about 62% of the agency's lands are available for livestock grazing, another common use in New Mexico.

Complaints on the rule

A fossil fuel advocacy group bashed the rule, contending it goes against the federal land management law.

"The conservation rule is indeed meant to limit energy development, grazing, mining, and other productive uses of federal lands," Kathleen Sgamma, president of Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, wrote in an email. "Nowhere in law does BLM have the ability to issue leases for nonuse of federal lands."

Sgamma was referring to the mitigation leasing that allows for some land to be conserved — for instance, to offset the potential ecological effects of nearby drilling.

In the land management law, Congress specified the multiple uses on BLM tracts, with the intent they were to satisfy the need for food, fuel and fiber, Sgamma argued. BLM is trying to give itself a similar mission as the National Park Service by trying to erase commercial use, she said.

"Congress has the Wilderness Act and other laws to close off public lands, but FLPMA isn't one of them," she wrote.

But one environmental attorney said industry often argues the multiple-use provision favors oil and gas leasing, in part because BLM hasn't really contradicted it.

This rule is the first time BLM has issued any regulatory framework for protecting ecosystems and its public lands when it comes to fossil fuel extraction, said Melissa Hornbein, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center.

"If nothing else, symbolically it's a really important development," Hornbein said. "And contrary to what the industry would have us all believe, this is not an attempt to turn oil and gas infrastructure on its head."

Hornbein agreed the federal land management law covers the conservation bases, but having the agency interpret and make a statement on how it should be carried out strengthens it.

"This is a historically significant thing," said Beau Kiklis, senior program manager of energy and landscape conservation at the National Parks Conservation Association. "It's an acknowledgment that the conditions of our public lands have been deteriorating for decades of this imbalance of land management."

Protecting the parks

Chaco Canyon and Carlsbad Caverns are among the parks near oil fields that will benefit from BLM giving conservation a higher priority than in the past, Kiklis said. Both parks have suffered the ill effects of pollution from nearby fossil fuel operations, he said.

In the Carlsbad area, oil fields emit enough ground-level ozone, the main ingredient in smog, to push the caverns' air pollution to a "significant level of concern."

The rule also creates more opportunities to develop solar and wind on the state's BLM lands instead of the agency focusing so much on fossil fuel, Kiklis said.

"We did things wrong for so long, especially in places like New Mexico, where we lease and drill across these fragile landscapes," he said. "Some level of development is going to be necessary for renewable energy. But how do we do that right?"

An Indigenous advocate said the rule should further shift the federal government away from treating Chaco and other tribal areas like "sacrifice zones" for oil and gas operations.

"This new rule will really invite more careful consideration on the impact for people, for the agriculture, for animals," said Terry Sloan, director of Albuquerque-based Southwest Native Cultures. "The value of our planet, of the land, air and the water ... is really beginning to take some importance."

Sloan said the restoration leasing will allow Indigenous people to get involved in protecting ecosystems and natural resources from drilling and mining. Tribes have been stewards of the land for generations, so they know the best approach to take, he said.

"To me, it's a no-brainer that should've been done a long time ago," Sloan said.