BILLINGS, Mont. - The Interior Department under President Donald Trump's administration is revoking a rule that placed conservation on par with development activities. This move relaxes limits on industries while promoting expanded drilling, logging, mining and grazing across taxpayer-funded public lands.

The rule, enacted in 2024 during former President Joe Biden's term, sought to reshape the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management - overseer of roughly 10% of U.S. territory. It enabled leasing public lands for ecological restoration, mirroring the process used by oil firms for extraction operations.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has criticized the rule, claiming it risked locking away hundreds of thousands of acres and impeding energy production, timber harvesting and ranching on public grazing areas.

Advocates maintained that conservation had always played second fiddle at the agency, undermining its duties under the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act. Although the bureau granted occasional conservation leases before, the Biden era marked the first formal program of its kind.

"Repealing this rule spells reduced safeguards for pristine drinking water sources, vulnerable endangered species reliant on intact habitats, and diminished oversight of corporate impacts that scar these vital landscapes," stated Bobby McEnaney of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Officials announced in Monday's documents that the rule overstepped the bureau's authority by permitting external entities to secure conservation leases.

Industry organizations and Republican lawmakers in Congress fiercely resisted the regulation, pushing hard for its elimination. They argued Biden's policy breached the "multiple use" principle governing Interior lands by promoting "non-use" through restoration leases as a top priority.

"This step delivers enhanced clarity and reliability for independent oil and natural gas operators - many dependent on steady permitting and leasing to thrive and bolster U.S. energy independence," said Dan Naatz of the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

The federal estate spans vast Western expanses, including Alaska, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Since assuming office, Trump has rolled out numerous initiatives to ramp up fossil fuel output from these public holdings. His Republican team has also moved to curb certain renewable projects, decrying them as beneficiaries of undue Biden-era subsidies.

The revocation takes effect 30 days following Federal Register publication, set for Tuesday.

This follows recent congressional Republican efforts to nullify late Biden-era land plans that curbed development across swaths of Alaska, Montana and North Dakota.

Beyond surface acres, the Bureau of Land Management controls subsurface minerals - from coal for electricity to lithium for clean tech - over more than 1 million square miles (2.5 million square kilometers). Long known for pro-industry stances, it has issued grazing permits and energy leases for over a century.