Our Bureau of Land Management lands are public lands of many uses; the Department of Interior doesn’t think that conservation should be one of them.
To appease oil and gas special interests, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced on September 10th that they intend to rescind the Conservation & Landscape Health Rule, more commonly known as the Public Lands Rule.
Championed by conservationists when implemented just last year, the Rule seeks to acknowledge conservation as a legitimate use and value of our shared public lands. This is increasingly important as Montana and the West grapple with significant challenges like growing recreational use, invasive species, wildfires, and droughts.
With this signaled action from the Administration, the Public Lands Rule won’t even be given a chance. Big oil and gas will win again, while hunters, anglers and those who value healthy wildlife habitat and undeveloped wild places will lose.
Why should we care?
245 million acres of public lands are managed by the BLM, with 8.3 million of those acres in Montana. Right now, these lands are open to public recreational use, but can also be leased by private interests for oil and gas development, grazing, and timber extraction.
The 2024 Public Lands Rule would have added an additional use: conservation. By allowing tribes, states, and/or conservation districts to pay to lease BLM lands – not for the traditional extractive uses, but rather – for conservation, the Public Lands Rule directed the DOI to weigh conservation, recreation, and public access in the same way they consider traditional and extractive uses like grazing, timber, mining, and oil and gas drilling when developing their resource management plans. Additionally, the new rule requires the BLM to consider local input in its decision-making, something we can all support.
With the Public Lands Rule, our federal public lands continue to generate direct revenue while also allowing these lands to recover or remain as they are, thereby supporting the $1.2 trillion outdoor economy that heavily relies on our public lands. It was a win-win.
However, without this rule, these lands will once again be on an all-you-can-lease buffet for oil and gas, logging, and grazing, with no one else involved, and without your say. Millions of acres of public lands – and our outdoor pursuits, small businesses, and gateway communities that rely on them – will suffer.
What can we do about it?
When the Public Lands Rule was proposed in 2023, a whopping 92% of the public comments favored this new approach. Now, just two years later, we need you to weigh in again to prevent it from being scrapped.
Please join the Montana Wildlife Federation in urging the DOI to reconsider this rescission and to instead leave the Public Lands Rule in place. Let’s give conservation a seat at the table; Montana’s outdoor economy, our rural communities, and our sporting traditions depend on it.
On Aug. 27, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is moving forward with plans to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule. A notice is now live on the Federal Register, where the public can comment on the repeal in a mere three-week window, from now until Sept. 19.
The proposal would lift roadless protections from nearly 45 million acres of roadless national forest lands across the country, including more than 6 million acres in Montana. For hunters, anglers, and outdoor enthusiasts, the stakes could not be higher.
“Montanans have consistently supported strong protections for our backcountry lands,” said Mike Mershon, board president of the Montana Wildlife Federation. “Rolling back the Roadless Rule would not only put elk and native trout at risk, it would also strip away the very opportunities that make Montana special. We need more time to ensure our voices are heard.”
Since its creation nearly a quarter century ago, the Roadless Rule has safeguarded large, unfragmented areas of national forest by generally prohibiting new road construction. These lands include headwater streams that feed Montana’s rivers, critical elk security habitat, and some of the most sought-after backcountry hunting and fishing destinations across the country—and in Montana.
These forests only remain intact because of the Forest Service’s commitment not to allow roads for destructive industrial activities like major logging or oil and gas drilling, although the rule already provides access for pre-existing oil and gas leases, and new oil and gas leases can be accessed through directional drilling.
Rescinding the rule would open the door to large-scale development that would fragment habitat, pollute waterways, and forever change the character of places generations of Americans have relied on for solitude, fish, and game.
Let’s be clear: the Roadless Rule is flexible: it allows for off-highway vehicle riding on existing trails, firewood cutting, grazing, and active management projects such as thinning and prescribed burning. It is not wilderness. In fact, the Forest Service and its partners have used the Roadless Rule framework to carry out hundreds of restoration projects in Montana that improve forest health and fish habitat while supporting rural jobs.
These areas are vital for wildlife, and they’re also used for recreation by millions of Americans. Roadless areas protect more than 43,000 miles of trail, over 20,000 mountain biking routes, 11,000 climbing routes, and more than 1,000 whitewater paddling runs. Large sections of the Continental Divide Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Appalachian Trail cross through them. Rolling back protections would jeopardize access to some of the most iconic outdoor experiences in the country.
Fire and Forest Health
Proponents of repealing the Roadless Rule have argued that it limits wildfire suppression efforts. However, a 2025 study found that logging and road building disrupts forest ecosystems, leading organic materials to become more flammable. In short, wildfires are far more likely to start near roads. New research from The Wilderness Society, now in peer review, shows that from 1992 to 2024, wildfires were four times as likely to start in areas with roads than in roadless tracts. Seventy-eight percent of human-caused fires on National Forests nationwide start within a half-mile of a road (85% of all wildfires are human-caused).
The Roadless Rule already allows for fire mitigation using mechanized thinning and prescribed burning. Since the Roadless Rule was enacted in 2001, more than 188,000 acres of Montana’s roadless lands have been treated for hazardous fuels reduction, representing more than 20% all treatments in our state during this timeframe.
Without the rule, these areas would be vulnerable to new roadbuilding that fragments wildlife habitat, degrades water quality, and pushes elk onto private lands where public access is often limited. Hunters who rely on these areas to find solitude and game would see those opportunities diminish.
Roadless areas provide irreplaceable big-game habitat and security cover which keeps big game species on public land and provide the backcountry experiences many hunters seek. Photo by Mike Mershon.
Why Hunters and Anglers Should Care
For sportsmen and women who lace up our boots at 4 a.m. and walk into the dark to hunt elk, the connection is clear: fewer intact landscapes mean fewer elk on public land, less secure cover for wildlife, and more hunters stacked up at the same crowded trailheads. Elk rely on secure habitat to avoid heavy hunting pressure, and roadless lands provide exactly that. According to the USDA’s own data, fewer roads correlate directly with more elk and greater hunter satisfaction.
Hunters know this and the outdoor industry has built entire tools around it. Recently, GOHUNT rolled out a new mapping feature — a Road Density layer — that they’re calling a “game-changer” for finding elk away from pressure. Montana-based OnX has offered a roadless layer for years, making it easier for hunters to identify the very places the Roadless Rule was designed to protect. These tools are popular because they point hunters toward opportunity: the intact, unroaded landscapes where elk still behave like elk and where hunting traditions can be passed down.
For anglers, the stakes are just as clear. Roadless areas shelter the headwater streams where native trout and salmon still hold on. These are the places worth a backcountry trek with a fly rod strapped to your pack—rivers shaded by old-growth spruce and fir, where the water runs cold enough to sustain fragile species. Industrial logging threatens that balance. Logging proposals often target the biggest, oldest trees—the very ones that store the most carbon, create a canopy that cools stream temperatures, and sustain entire aquatic ecosystems. The same roads that scatter elk herds also bleed sediment into streams, smothering spawning beds. What’s left is warmer water, fewer trout, and the slow unraveling of fishing traditions that depend on intact watersheds. Removing them would mean a direct hit to climate resilience, fish habitat, and big game security.
More Roads, More Costs
The value of roadless country stretches beyond our elk and native trout. Across the United States, national forests supply drinking water to more than 60 million people. Opening these lands to development is an invoice to taxpayers, who will be left paying for filtration plants and restoration projects once clean water sources are compromised.
On top of that, we don’t have the resources to manage the roads already in existence. The Forest Service already manages 380,000 miles of roads through national forests—twice the length of the national highway system. The agency has a multibillion-dollar backlog of maintenance needs for this network, and ongoing staff shortages mean it cannot even manage what exists today. Building new roads in backcountry forests would saddle taxpayers with billions more in costs and maintenance liabilities.
These roads would also fragment big-game migration corridors, undermine habitat security for species from elk to grizzlies, and put culturally important hunting, fishing, and gathering areas at risk.
TAKE ACTION
The administration has given the public just 21 days to weigh in on a proposal that would reshape the management of nearly one-fifth of the National Forest System. That is simply not enough time for hunters, anglers, local communities, and conservationists to have their say.
The public comment period runs only through Sept. 19. Public comments will be considered during the development of the draft environmental impact statement, and additional opportunities to comment will occur as the rulemaking process continues, according to the USDA.
If you care about keeping Montana’s backcountry open, intact, and teeming with fish and wildlife, now is the time to speak up.
You can submit your comment directly through the Federal Register here. Tell USDA to keep the Roadless Rule in place, extend the comment period, and protect the public lands that define our way of life.
Hunters, Anglers and Montanans Call on Senators Daines and Sheehy to Rally Opposition to White House Budget “Gut-Punch” to American Public Lands
Call 202-224-3121 and ask Senator Daines and Senator Sheehy to Oppose The White House Flip-flop on the Land and Water Conservation Fund & Devastating Cuts to American Public Lands
Late last Friday night, The White House released more details of its federal budget proposal, which would devastate American public lands, National Parks, and public land managers across Montana. Among the most significant concerns is the President’s flip-flop on the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which was permanently authorized in 2020 by Senator Steve Daines’ Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) and is administered in the state by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The GAOA, which was signed into law by President Trump during his first term, requires funds to be spent on acquiring new public land, rather than being siphoned for maintenance.
Montana Wildlife Federation Executive Director Frank Szollosi issued the following statement:
“We stood shoulder to shoulder with Senator Daines in his fight to permanently authorize LWCF, which has helped fund nearly 800 projects across Montana over the past 60 years. We stood with Senator Daines at Roosevelt Arch to celebrate when President Trump signed the permanent authorization into law in 2020. And we look forward to standing with him again today in opposition to the White House’s gut-punch to Montana hunters, anglers, and communities. The President can’t go back on his word.”
“Take a look at the Blackfoot River. It has $20 million in current pending projects slated for funding that would be lost, as would critical projects along the Rocky Mountain Front and in the Lolo National Forest. These are among the key wildlife habitats and outdoor recreation areas in the queue for LWCF, providing access for sportsmen and women throughout the state and bolstering our local rural economies, protecting Montana’s way of life. If this proposal goes forward, these vital places will be needlessly damaged.”
Montana hunters & anglers object to ignoring rules & public comment to fast-track oil & gas extraction
Call on Senators Daines & Sheehy & Representatives Zinke & Downing to defend working & public land & public input
Reacting to the announcement of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s “emergency” plan to change permitting processes for mining, oil and gas, and other select minerals and energy sources, the Montana Wildlife Federation issued the following statement, attributable to Executive Director Frank Szollosi.
“The only emergency that Montana’s hunters and anglers can discern is chaotic decision-making by the federal government. Secretary Doug Burgum swore to uphold the Interior Department’s mission to “protect and manage the Nation’s natural resources.” When oil and gas production is already at a record high, it marks an extreme move to cut Montanans from decisions about where industry drills.
This sop to special interests will negatively impact public land, Montana farms and ranches, Montana rivers and streams, and our wildlife. A federal emergency declaration could overrule private property rights and greenlight extractive drilling on private lands where oil and gas resources are federally owned without consulting landowners. Our families, wildlife, and communities deserve a balanced approach that respects responsible development and local expertise.
Montanans know our lands best, and we should maintain our rightful role in determining where and how development occurs on our public lands. We call on our delegation, especially Senator Daines and Senator Sheehy, who supported Burgum’s confirmation earlier this year, to defend public input and working and public lands across Montana.”
Background from the Natural Resources Defense Council:
Under the guise of a “National Energy Emergency,” the department is slashing permitting timelines and overriding safeguards under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Endangered Species Act (ESA), and National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA).
These changes will sideline the public, short-circuit Tribal consultation, and open public lands and oceans to drilling, mining, and other industrial development with minimal oversight.
No legal basis: The administration’s move to bypass environmental law is unprecedented and legally dubious. It directly conflicts with decades of established policy and practice under NEPA, ESA, and the NHPA.
Rubber-stamp approvals: Projects that once required thorough environmental review and public engagement will now bypass critical protections, reducing permitting to a hollow, rubber-stamp process.
Public silenced: The rule slashes—and in some cases eliminates entirely—public comment windows and short-circuits Tribal consultation processes, minimizing the role of communities, scientists, and local governments.
Endangered species and cultural sites at risk: By gutting Endangered Species Act and National Historic Preservation Act safeguards, the policy leaves wildlife, habitat and sacred cultural sites vulnerable to destruction.
All for extraction: Despite being pitched as energy-neutral, this change overwhelmingly benefits oil, gas, coal, and mining companies—opening public lands and waters to dangerous exploitation under the cover of emergency.
Montana’s public lands define who we are. They’re where we hunt, fish, hike, and pass down our outdoor traditions and way of life to our families. They support our economy, sustain our wildlife, and connect us to the places we love most.
But a new report released today warns that a growing political movement to transfer federal public lands to state control could devastate Montana’s economy, upend public access, and put our outdoor way of life at risk.
The report, authored by longtime state and federal land manager John Tubbs, was developed in partnership with the Montana Wildlife Federation, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund, and Mountain Mamas. It offers the most comprehensive look yet at what a federal land transfer would actually cost Montana—and the numbers are staggering.
The Bottom Line: $7.9 Billion
According to the report, if Montana were to take over the responsibility of managing federal public lands currently overseen by agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, it would come with a conservatively estimated $7.9 billion price tag over the next 20 years.
That includes:
$5.5 billion in wildfire suppression and mitigation
$1 billion in abandoned mine cleanup
$623 million in deferred infrastructure maintenance (roads, bridges, trails, campgrounds)
An annual loss of $40 million in federal PILT (Payments in Lieu of Taxes) that counties depend on for schools, emergency services, and road crews
A 1,600% increase in grazing fees for Montana ranchers
These costs would fall squarely on the shoulders of Montana taxpayers—many of whom already live in rural areas with limited tax bases. The state does not currently have the infrastructure, personnel, or budget to manage these lands at the scale and level the federal government provides.
And if the state can’t afford the cost? It would likely be forced to sell those lands off to the highest bidder.
More Than Just Numbers
The report goes beyond dollars and cents. It paints a clear picture of what’s at stake if this movement succeeds: restricted access, lost wildlife habitat, and diminished public oversight of lands that currently belong to every American.
“Montanans should be aware of the staggering financial and economic toll a federal land transfer would take on taxpayers, our state, and our outdoor way of life,” said John Tubbs. “This research shows how the land transfer movement would both send our state’s economy into a tailspin and open the door for privatization of public lands. These impacts would be unsustainable—and irreversible.”
It’s not just the cost of managing the land. It’s the loss of what that land provides: wildlife corridors, hunting opportunities, intact habitat, clean water, and freedom to roam. These are the pillars of Montana’s $5.4 billion outdoor recreation economy and the foundation of our public land heritage.
Why Now?
The land transfer movement is gaining momentum. We’ve seen a renewed push to move federal lands into state hands or open them up for sale.
Recent examples include:
The Department of Housing and Urban Development and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum proposing public land sales as part of affordable housing strategies
Congressional rule changes aimed at expediting development and reducing public oversight on federal lands
State-level resolutions, including in Montana, have attempted to support lawsuits like Utah’s effort to seize federal lands
A wave of federal bills pushing for land transfers or outright liquidation of public assets
This report makes it clear: this isn’t a hypothetical. It’s already underway.
What We Stand to Lose
If Montana were to absorb the management of federal lands without the accompanying federal support, it would quickly face an impossible choice: raise taxes dramatically, cut vital public services, or sell off public lands.
And once they’re gone, we don’t get them back.
Transferring ownership or management of federal public lands would undercut the very systems that have made Montana a leader in wildlife management, public access, and land stewardship. It would undermine generations of work by hunters, anglers, landowners, and conservationists who’ve fought to keep these places open, productive, and wild.
At Montana Wildlife Federation, we believe that public lands should stay in public hands—and that Montanans shouldn’t have to pay more just to lose what’s already ours. We’re proud to stand alongside partners like BHA, Mountain Mamas, and MCV Education Fund in co-releasing this report and sounding the alarm on what’s at stake.
Jeff Lukas
Conservation Director
Jeff Lukas is a passionate conservationist who has been fishing and hunting his entire life. Whether it’s floating a small stream chasing trout, pursuing elk in the high country, or waiting in a blind for ducks to set their wings, Jeff is always trying to bring more people afield to show them what we are trying to protect. He loves being in the arena, and he will never shy away from conversations about the beautiful and unique corners of Big Sky country.
