US land managers want to undo rules that prioritized conservation over drilling

The Bureau of Land Management wants to cancel a new rule that put conservation on equal footing with other land uses like drilling and grazing. This means the agency will go back to its previous approach, where resource extraction often took priority.

The US manages vast tracts of public land. For decades, the rules for these lands mostly focused on extracting resources like oil, gas, and minerals. The now-threatened rule tried to balance that with protecting ecosystems and cultural sites. Undoing it means the agency will likely continue to favor extraction, making it harder to protect landscapes from development.