Multiple-use mandate is back, baby
See you March 17.
It’s a beautiful Montalbano Monday, and it happens to be the first morning I’ve woken up in the Last Frontier in quite a while! I’m soaking up the joys of home and the beauty that Alaska has to offer, so I will be taking a brief break on March 10. Barring an emergency, cataclysm, or catastrophe, I’ll be back in your inbox on March 17.
Here’s the news from my week:
I testified in front of the Minnesota House Energy Finance and Policy Committee on Tuesday about utilities’ (ludicrous) ability to green plate the grid and pass the costs to the ratepayer. You can read my testimony here or on American Experiment’s website.
’ Isaac Orr testified, too, so if you’d like to learn more about the concept, read their slides here:
I wrote a letter to the editor about the economic pain the Jones Act inflicts on my home state of Alaska in The Wall Street Journal. Why did the Jones Act come about? Because Senator Wesley Jones (of Washington state!) wanted to cement Seattle’s monopoly over shipping to the then-territory. Unfortunately, laws have consequences, so Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and any state that benefits from shipping suffer, too.
EIA: Minnesota #1 for gas tax increase since 2024, February 27, 2025, Center of the American Experiment. And how much do EVs pay in gas taxes? Zilch.
U.S. is making do with less of most things, study finds, February 24, 2025, Center of the American Experiment. This piece was inspired by, and excerpts from, a piece found at
’s The Honest Broker, which I encourage you to read in full.
Without further ado:
Multiple-Use Mandate Is Back at Bureau of Land Management
What should be the guiding principle of federal lands management? The House Subcommittee on Federal Lands heard from witnesses about just that last week.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages 245 million surface acres and 700 million acres of underground minerals. The BLM is particularly influential in Western states where land owned by the federal government can easily exceed 50 percent. 84.9% of Nevada is owned by the federal government, and 61.3% of my home state of Alaska, or 223 million acres, is owned by the federal government.
The BLM and the U.S. Forest Service are supposed to adhere to a “multiple use and sustained yield” mandate under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. These multiple uses include, but are not limited to, “recreation, range, timber, minerals, watershed, wildlife and fish, and natural scenic, scientific and historical values.” Sustained yield requires BLM to aim to balance “the achievement and maintenance in perpetuity” of multiple uses.
However, the Biden administration routinely restricted and denied timber, mining, oil and gas, and other projects that ought to be considered on federal lands under multiple-use management. Biden released a vague and preservationist executive order in 2021, the “America the Beautiful” initiative, that required federal agencies to preserve at least 30% of the country’s lands and waters by 2030. The administration also put in place the Conservation and Landscape Health rule, which created a novel conservation leasing program that sets preservation above other multiple uses. Unilateral designations of national monuments, with little input from local communities, were a staple of both the Biden and Obama years.
Multiple users of public lands were highlighted in the subcommittee hearing. Tim Canterbury, a rancher from Howard, Colorado, and president of the Public Lands Council, criticized the “huge regulatory burdens” that other grazers faced, and told the committee that “more land designations and reduced focus on active management is not the solution.”
Witnesses pointed to overregulation as a key issue, and suggested streamlining the permitting process under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), reforming statutes like the Endangered Species Act and the Antiquities Act, and more use of the Good Neighbor Authority to allow states to reduce wildfire risks on federal lands.
This hearing was well-timed with the nomination of Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, to be Trump’s Bureau of Land Management director. If confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Sgamma would oversee federal leasing programs for oil and gas, mining, grazing, and renewable energy. Ms. Sgamma said that she greatly respects “the work BLM does to balance multiple uses—like energy, recreation, grazing, mining—with stewardship of the land.”
In 1910, President Teddy Roosevelt said that, “Conservation means development as much as it does protection.” Multiple-use management recognizes that development is not at odds with responsible conservation and tries to strike a balance guided by the residents closest to the issue.
Mr. Canterbury, who testified on behalf of the Public Lands Council, said it well: “We cannot regulate conservation. Conservation comes from those of us that’s on the land.”
This piece was originally published by Independent Women’s Forum Center for Energy and Conservation on February 19, 2025.
An interested reader offered some clarification on my multiple-use piece that I think is valuable, so I'm posting their comments verbatim (with permission)!
"FLPMA mainly governs the DOI/BLM – not USDA/Forest Service. The multiple use mandate on National Forest System lands comes mainly from the Organic Act of 1897 and the Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act of 1960.
Also: “Ms. Sgamma would oversee federal leasing programs for oil and gas, mining, grazing, and renewable energy.”
In the western states – including Alaska, metallic minerals (and a few others) are governed by the U.S. Mining Law which establishes a self-initiated claim system – not a leasing program. This is an important distinction because leasing is a discretionary decision (and can be revoked like at Twin Metals). A mining claim gives the owner a property right to the minerals. The Feds cannot categorically deny a Plan of Operations on mining claims. They can only regulate mining activities to ensure environmental protection."
Sarah, Will you be returning as Sarah O'Montalbano on St. Patrick's Day? ;-)