Can BLM ignore land-use plans and lease off-limits ‘Golden Triangle’ habitat for drilling?

In December, after an extraordinarily controversial planning process, the Biden administration’s Bureau of Land Management signed off on a final resource management plan that’s now governing 3.6 million acres of southwestern Wyoming.

The Rock Springs-area plan sought to balance the needs of development and wildlife, though unhappy Wyoming leaders maintained it tilted too far toward conservation at the expense of industrial activities.

Over 280,000 acres of the so-called Golden Triangle, for example — home to the densest population of sage grouse left on Earth — was designated as an “area of critical environmental concern,” excluded from surface-disturbing activities and expressly closed to mineral leasing.

Ten months later, the BLM is proposing to put 14 parcels encompassing 19,839 acre