The Bureau of Land Management announced updated plans that enhance conservation of Greater sage-grouse habitat while balancing access to public lands for responsible energy and mineral development across Idaho, Montana and the Dakotas, Nevada and California, Utah and Wyoming.
“We are strengthening American energy security while ensuring the sage-grouse continues to thrive,” said Acting Bureau of Land Management Director Bill Groffy. “Healthy sagebrush country powers our communities, sustains wildlife and supports the economies that make the West strong.”
The decisions support Executive Order 14154, Unleashing American Energy, along with Secretary of the Interior orders that advance national energy independence. The updated approach makes more acres available in some areas for development than the 2015 plans allowed while continuing to protect key habitat across approximately 65 million acres of sagebrush lands that sustain more than 350 wildlife species.
Developed in close partnership with Western governors and state wildlife managers, the approved plans reflect the latest science and address state requests for better alignment on adaptive management and other conservation strategies.
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and Public Lands Council (PLC) originally submitted comments on these plans after each phase of revisions in 2015, 2019, and 2024, advising BLM leadership to leverage livestock grazing as a tool for strengthening sagebrush habitat and preventing wildfires that kill countless birds every year.
“The revised sage grouse management plans recognize the role of cattle producers, as the original conservationists and follows the best available science. Without ranchers actively managing millions of acres of western rangeland, there would be less habitat and forage, and grouse populations would be substantially smaller,” said NCBA President and Nebraska cattleman Buck Wehrbein. “This is the blueprint for how management plans should be revised in the future, with a bottom-up approach focusing on input from land managers and rural communities that live alongside wildlife including grouse. NCBA thanks the BLM and Trump administration for releasing these plans that greatly utilize stakeholder input.”
Due to the diverse habitat for sage grouse that varies from state to state, a single conservation strategy would have been ineffective for this species, and the Biden administration was moving forward with a one-size-fits-all plan at the end of 2024 with little time for stakeholder input. The Trump administration tailored their revisions to meet the local needs to achieve the best results for all grouse populations. This includes their work gathering input from western Governors, federal grazing permittees and other local stakeholders to ensure they are hearing from the experts and boots on the ground that manage this species every day.
“The revised sage grouse management plans will support the work of ranchers across the West, as we work to create optimal habitat for sage grouse. These plans unleash the conservation prowess of federal lands ranchers and allow critical conservation work that supports grouse habitat to continue without burdensome government red tape,” said PLC President and Colorado rancher Tim Canterbury. “Previous administrations have wanted to use these management plans to tie up millions of acres of land and let them further degrade. That would not have helped boost sage grouse numbers and it is flat out unscientific. Ranchers throughout the West are thankful for the Trump administration and BLM leadership for releasing these detailed plans to the benefit of sage grouse and ranchers alike.”
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BLM/PLC/NCBA
