Today the Subcommittee on Federal Lands held an oversight hearing on the Fiscal Year 2025 budget request for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the National Park Service (NPS). Subcommittee Chairman Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) issued the following statement in response:

"To no surprise, President Biden’s FY25 budget request caters to green lobby radicals, fails to address the environmental degradation from illegal immigration, and puts the American people on the back burner. Americans depend on access to federal lands for their way of life, and it’s time that this administration drops the partisan politics and does what’s best for the communities, families, and small businesses that live and operate closest to our federal lands."

Background

BLM’s budget request fundamentally threatens the western way of life, jeopardizing American jobs dependent on access to public lands. It continues the Biden administration’s war on domestic energy production and small businesses by imposing burdensome fees and regulations on oil and gas development. It also fails to request any meaningful permitting reform provisions, ensuring American energy and mining projects on federal lands will continue struggling through a morass of red tape.

BLM officials have routinely orchestrated preservationist policies that restrict access, hurt local economies and remove uses of public lands. Earlier this month, President Joe Biden expanded a BLM-managed monument in California that the Department of the Interior claimed would “advance” the 30x30 agenda. The BLM also recently finalized a public lands rule that broadly allows the BLM to lease lands under new and vaguely defined “conservation leases,” significantly altering the standards around access and multiple use decisions. 

Some of the most dangerous areas along the U.S.-Mexico border are the 693 miles of federal land. Such areas are often targeted by criminals, drug smugglers and human traffickers because they are remote, thinly populated and less frequently patrolled. Despite the clear threats posed to federal border lands, the Biden administration has failed to produce a plan.

In conjunction with the NPS, the Biden administration has abused our federal lands to cover for their border policy failures.  House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark,) and other Republican members saw firsthand how the administration has cut off New York City (NYC) residents' access to Floyd Bennett Field by turning it into a migrant encampment. Committee members have repeatedly requested information from administration officials on how this decision was made and what type of precedent it sets, with little to no response. 

The NPS budget request inexplicably cuts programs that improve access to national parks and reduce the deferred maintenance backlog to fund vague and undefined administration priorities. One of the most concerning aspects of NPS’s budget is a $25 million decrease in repair and rehabilitation projects in the Facility Operation and Maintenance account. Instead, this account proposes $3.1 million for “Increasing Representation on Our Public Lands.” Repair and rehabilitation projects address complex maintenance needs in the National Park System and prevent deterioration of facilities and infrastructure. Biden’s proposal to decrease funding for vital maintenance projects only ensures that the deferred maintenance backlog will continue to grow.