Federal officials finalized new land-management guidelines Friday for 3.6 million acres of southwest Wyoming, prescribing future management for beloved landscapes like the Red Desert and the Little Mountain region.
The move comes only weeks before President Joe Biden will leave office and only hours before a possible federal government shutdown. It drew a strong response from Gov. Mark Gordon, who accused the Biden administration of ignoring feedback from the state.
Revisions to the resource management plan for the Bureau of Land Management’s Rock Springs Field Office were 13 years in the making. On Friday afternoon, the federal agency published a “record of decision” document, closing the door to additional changes.
“I’ve worked for BLM-Wyoming for over a decade … and the Rock Springs RMP has always been something that’s been ongoing,” Deputy State Director for Communications Brad Purdy told WyoFile. “It does feel very nice to get that across the finish line. We can have some good resource management in that area that isn’t from 1997.”