The future of a land use plan for tens of millions of acres of public land in eastern Montana is in doubt. The U.S. House of Representatives voted this month to throw the plan out. The plan came together over years with input from producers, tribes, and energy companies. High Country News reporter Zoë Rom joined MTPR's Austin Amestoy to explain how Congress could change land use planning forever.
Austin Amestoy So, the House voted to nullify three of these huge land management plans, two of them in North Dakota and Alaska, but I want to focus on this one out of Miles City; the Miles City Resource Management Plan, as it's formally called. Give us some background on the plan and why it's so important.
Zoë Rom Resource management plans are sort of blueprints for how federal lands are managed for decades and beyond. So this is really an example of a lot of different stakeholders coming to the table to craft a plan that is really rooted in compromise for all the groups involved. Federal law requires BLM lands to be managed for multiple uses. So, grazing, energy development, wildlife habitat, cultural resources, et cetera. And this really sets long-term rules for a lot of the West's biggest landscapes. And it protects critical wildlife habitat while still leaving room for different economic uses. And it really symbolizes this broader tug-of-war over Western public lands, pitting energy against conservation, local livelihoods against national priorities. And this is the first of three RMPs targeted under the Congressional Review Act. So the Miles City plan is really gonna serve as a test case for whether Congress can override this kind of local, collaborative land use planning.
Austin Amestoy And let's talk about the Congressional Review Act for a second. The U.S. House, including Montana's representatives Troy Downing and Ryan Zinke, voted to scrap this plan earlier this month using that act that you just mentioned there. So let's just talk about how they have the power to do that and why the House is moving in that direction. In.
Zoë Rom Yeah, so this is a 1996 law that allows lawmakers to overturn agency rules within a 60-day legislative review window. The plan was only finalized in November of 2024, so it still falls within that CRA review window. The CRA has only successfully been used about 20 times since its inception in 1996, but never before on a land use plan. This is a contentious idea that we'll likely see come into legal dispute down the road. The new House majority has really signaled that it wants to use the CRA to aggressively roll back, particularly Biden-era public lands decisions.
Austin Amestoy A lot at stake here, it sounds like, Zoë. If the Senate approves this plan, what kind of precedent could that set?
Zoë Rom Congress has never before used the CRA to overturn a resource management plan. Doing so could potentially open the door for resource management plans across the West to be targeted, essentially rerouting decades of land management decisions through Congress, rather than the agencies and experts on the ground who understand the tradeoffs and who collaborated on bringing these plans together. RMPs, like we mentioned earlier, are built through years and years of local consultation, scientific review. Collaboration and compromise between tribes, ranchers, industry, and conservationists. And if Congress can simply toss one out and not have to give a reason as to why, it can really undermine trust.
A lot of the folks that I spoke to for this story about Miles City were particularly upset that their ranching permits were going to be rerouted through Congress – people who don't know about the particulars of managing that land.
It's also worth saying that there are more than 100 resource management plans that have been finalized since 1996. So this case could establish a precedent for using the Congressional Review Act to revisit any of them, destabilizing many, many long-term land management plans nationwide. Here we really don't know. That's why legal experts are calling this a Pandora's box, because if these three plans are nullified by the CRA. There could potentially be over a hundred more that are open to that same nullification and review process.
Austin Amestoy So what happens next?
Zoë Rom The resolution now heads to the Senate, where it just needs a simple majority to pass within 60 legislative days.
Austin Amestoy Well, we will wait to see how the Senate acts on this very consequential matter. High Country News' Zoë Rom sharing her reporting with us today. Zoë, we appreciate your time.
High Country News reporter Zoë Rom joined MTPR’s Austin Amestoy to explain how Congress’ decision could change land use planning forever.
