Public lands are essential for sustaining our hunting and angling traditions. Energy development and conservation can be compatible, but it takes the right policies to strike this balance.

Significant progress was made in 2024 when the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued updated regulations to modernize oil and gas development on public lands. These updates better balanced energy development with conservation while also ensuring that taxpayers are not left holding the bag when bad actors in the oil and gas industry default on their obligations to reclaim lands and waters impacted by oil and gas drilling.

Unfortunately, the BLM just released a new proposed regulation to do away with most of these improvements in the federal oil and gas leasing system. Further, the proposal would significantly curtail public involvement, limit science-based decision-making, and reduce opportunities for hunters and anglers to weigh in on the proposals to develop oil and gas resources in the areas we know best.

The agency is providing a 60-day comment period for the public to comment on this proposal, and your voice is essential to help inform the agency’s decision and avoid policy changes that would upset the balance between energy development and conservation.