This article was first published in the Gunnison Country Times on January 29, 2026.
A seismic shift in federal land management is underway due to Congress using an obscure law in ways it was never intended.
Members of Congress and the Trump administration are using the Congressional Review Act to repeal land management plans and protections that balance conservation with extractive uses on national public lands—throwing out decades of hard work by scientists and federal agency staff in the process. They are also overturning a stable, community-driven planning system for public lands and effectively silencing the voice of the public in public land management.
Enacted in 1996, the CRA allows Congress to nullify federal agency rules within a narrow time window after they are finalized. If a “resolution of disapproval” is passed by both the House and Senate and then signed by the president, the rule is voided. Crucially, the CRA contains a clause that bars an agency (such as the Bureau of Land Management) from ever issuing a replacement rule that is “substantially the same” unless specifically authorized by a new law. This makes the CRA an exceptionally blunt legislative instrument.
Historically, the CRA has been used sparingly—only about 20 times in nearly 30 years. But since June 2025, members of Congress have weaponized the CRA against land management actions and plans that were not previously treated as “rules,” including mineral withdrawals, resource management plans for BLM field offices, and management plans for national monuments.
In order to employ the CRA to repeal these plans and protections for public lands, members of Congress have asked the Government Accountability Office for formal opinions as to whether an agency action satisfies the CRA definition of a “rule,” even if it didn’t come out of the usual rule-making process. Those members are now relying on GAO opinions to justify legislative attacks on management plans and protections that were finalized months or even years ago and were previously thought to be untouchable by the CRA.
BLM Resource Management Plans serve as 20-year blueprints for public lands, governing everything from energy leasing to grazing and recreation within a specific BLM field office. Historically, the Interior department did not treat RMPs as rules. However, GAO opinions issued in June 2025 concluded that two Biden-era management plans for Alaska and North Dakota do meet the CRA definition of a rule.
Sukakpak Mountain in the Central Yukon; Source: Bureau of Land Management
Emboldened by these opinions, members of Congress began attacking several Biden-era RMPs, using the CRA to repeal them. In December 2025, President Donald Trump signed five CRA resolutions passed by Congress into law, overturning RMPs for national public lands managed by the Central Yukon (Alaska), Miles City (Montana), Buffalo (Wyoming), and North Dakota BLM field offices. These actions tossed aside years of scientific study, stakeholder engagement, and public comment in order to prioritize President Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda on public lands.
Concerningly, Congress has recently expanded its use of the CRA beyond RMPs to target specialized land protections for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (Minnesota) and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (Utah).
In January 2026, U.S. Representative Pete Stauber introduced a resolution to overturn protections for 225,000 acres of public land, including the headwaters of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, from mining for 20 years. Using the CRA on an executive mineral withdrawal is unprecedented. Stauber’s resolution passed the House on January 21. If it passes the Senate and is signed by President Trump, it would clear the way for Chilean-owned Antofagasta to build the Twin Metals mine in the headwaters of the country’s most-visited wilderness area.
Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument; Photo credit: Bureau of Land Management
Following a request from Representative Celeste Maloy, the GAO ruled in January 2026 that the management plan for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is subject to the CRA. Maloy and her congressional colleagues from Utah are expected to introduce a resolution of disapproval for the plan soon. This marks the first time the CRA will have been used to target a monument management plan. If successful, management of the monument will revert back to a Trump-era plan created after President Trump’s attempt to shrink the monument’s boundaries. Tribal leaders have warned that overturning this plan—which was built on extensive Tribal consultation—puts sacred cultural sites at risk of looting and degradation.
By invoking the CRA in ways never before imagined, Congress is effectively opening Pandora’s box on public lands. No one knows what is going to happen next. Because agencies cannot write substantially similar plans, they may be forced to revert to outdated management frameworks from the 1980s. These plans were created without modern geospatial tools and are uninformed by current wildlife science, mining technology, and climate realities.
Legal experts warn that if RMPs are treated as “rules,” then every RMP finalized since 1996 could be subject to repeal by Congress. That puts at least 5,000 existing oil and gas leases covering nearly 4 million acres at risk of being invalidated. This legal time bomb could spark decades of litigation that grinds all land use—including drilling, ranching, and recreation planning—to a halt. There is also significant concern that if BLM land use plans and protections are at risk, national forest management plans written by the Department of Agriculture or plans for national parks and wildlife refuges could also become targets for repeal.
Ironically, by upending precedent in this way, Congress has unleashed regulatory uncertainty on America’s public lands—threatening both conservation and recreation, as well as the very industrial interests prioritized by President Trump and his allies in Congress.
Featured image: Photo credit: Chad Davis