Outdoor recreation advocates are already feeling the ripple effects of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” and its impact on federal lands in the West.
Following sweeping changes brought by the bill approved by Congress earlier this year, The Bureau of Land Management auctioned off several parcels late last month for oil and gas development in east and central Utah.
Rafting enthusiasts are particularly concerned about two parcels totaling 998 acres that overlay the White River, a tributary to the Green River that flows through western Colorado and eastern Utah.
“The White River is a unique experience for paddlers looking for a family-friendly trip with few crowds,” Public Land Solutions, American Whitewater, and Outdoor Alliance wrote in comments this summer protesting the sale.
Now that those lands could be dotted with oil rigs and associated traffic, the groups worry the desert solitude experienced floating stretches of the river near Vernal will be lost.
“Unfortunately, Congress has now blocked the agency’s ability to reject these industry-nominated public lands this time around,” said Abby Grehlinger with Arc Initiatives, a conservation lobbying group, “cutting recreationists, who do not want to see this unique river experience negatively altered, from the decision-making process entirely.”
BLM had offered up the White River parcels before, under the Biden Administration. But after receiving 260 comments with concerns about the White River, the agency took those lands off the auction block in November 2023.
Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, however, the Department of Interior must offer up at least half of the parcels nominated by the oil and gas industry, no later than 18 months after a developer expresses interest.
The new law nixes the agency’s ability to consider recreational values when making its decisions, said Jason Keith with Public Lands Solutions.
“It removed the ability of land managers to have discretion,” he said, “to be more surgical and smarter in their land use planning.”
The bill directs the BLM to apply local resource management plans when making lease decisions. But many of those plans are years or decades old.
“They wouldn’t be able to consider any new changes in the landscape,” Keith said. “Were there bicycle trails built? Were there endangered species or cultural resources discovered and surveyed since that land use plan was finalized?”
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
More than 17,000 acres in Uinta and Sanpete counties sold Sept. 24, amounting to about 94% of the land BLM offered up for bid. The White River leases sold to Bro Energy LLC, a Salt Lake City-based company formed in 2005.
The lease sales generated nearly $8.3 million in revenue. But Taxpayers for Common Sense reports Utah stands to lose $230 million over the lifetime of these oil and gas projects due to recent federal changes to royalty rates.
The sales also averaged $477 an acre, Taxpayers for Common Sense noted, the highest rate in a decade and an indicator that the oil and gas industry has “strong interest” in the state.
Keith and other outdoor advocates worry last month’s auction is just the “tip of the iceberg.”
“We’re just months in this new world of no discretion from land managers to consider other uses,” Keith said. “So there are going to be more and bigger issues going forward.”
As debates over the One Big Beautiful Bill reached a crescendo this year, recreation and outdoor groups largely focused on Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and his proposal to permanently sell off portions of federal public lands to housing developers. The move received a torrent of backlash from hunters, anglers, climbers and hikers.
Lee’s plan ultimately did not make its way into the final legislation, after lawmakers in other western states, like Idaho and Montana, opposed it.
But the ruckus over the proposal meant other issues impacting public lands flew under the radar, Keith said.
“A lot of the oil and gas stuff, no one was paying attention,” Keith said. “It was such a massive piece of legislation that people weren’t able to look at every little detail.”
He worries that other hotly contested BLM lands previously blocked for auctions will pop up for sale again, including parcels on the famed Slickrock Trail near Moab that even former Gov. Gary Herbert opposed.
“If they’re nominated,” Keith said, “they’re back on the table.”
He added that his group, which works with rural communities to diversify their economies with outdoor recreation, is also monitoring public lands auctions that include mountain bike trails in Colorado.
The Vernal area, meanwhile, has made public investments in outdoor recreation in recent years, building a winter tubing hill, mountain biking trails and a via ferrata climbing route.
“Our point is not that they should stop drilling,” Keith said. “It’s that if you want to have another sector to your economy, just be smart about what you do with your landscape.”