skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Kerrville didn't have weather sirens used by other cities; Ohio bill could chill ballot access, spark voter challenges; Medicaid cuts: Disproportionate impact predicted for LGBTQ+ in IL; MN's construction trades hopeful data center incentives pay off; Texas doctors leery of changes to 'clarify' abortion law language.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

FEMA's fate remains up in the air as flooding ravages Texas, Trump again threatens aggressive tariffs, and U.S. Supreme Court considers a consequential campaign finance case.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Farmers may abandon successful conservation programs if federal financial chaos continues, a rural electric cooperative in Southwest Colorado is going independent to shrink customer costs, and LGBTQ+ teens say an online shoulder helps more than community support.

New BLM rule could help protect America's national parks

play audio
Play

Monday, May 6, 2024   

As critics work to roll back new Bureau of Land Management rules, public lands advocates are defending the agency's move to put conservation uses on equal footing with extraction and development.

Matthew Kirby, senior director of energy and landscape conservation for the National Parks Conservation Association, said the new rules can be used to benefit national parks, for example, by reducing pollution from oil and gas drilling on the 3.3 million acres of BLM-managed mineral rights in eastern Colorado.

"Thousands of feet higher than where the actual drilling is happening, you can go up to Rocky Mountain National Park," Kirby recounted. "You can't even see on some days, (in part) because of pollution that is coming from drilling activities."

The rules also identify conservation tools to restore degraded lands owned by all Americans, and to keep natural landscapes intact. Industry groups have called the rules a land grab. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., have promised to repeal the rules finalized in April, claiming they block access to public lands and subvert the multiple-use requirement under the Federal Land Policy Management Act.

Ninety percent of lands managed by the BLM remain open for oil and gas development. There are more than 31,000 orphaned wells within 30 miles of national parks and the new rules update bonding requirements to prevent more abandoned sites. Kirby noted until now, corporations have run the show.

"Industry was allowed to lock up land for less than the price of a cup of coffee," Kirby asserted. "They could speculate, they could develop, all at the expense of the taxpayer and the public that was no longer actually able to recreate on that land. But thanks to this new rule, we're really on a path to fix that broken system."

The new rule also gives the BLM tools to steer any future oil and gas development away from national parks. More than 80 national park units sit adjacent to public lands managed by the BLM and Kirby argued any development affects parks, connected waterways and wildlife migration corridors.

"Wildlife migrate across borders, water moves across national park borders, air flows in and out," Kirby stressed. "What happens outside of national parks really is critical to national park resources."

Disclosure: The National Parks Conservation Association contributes to our fund for reporting on Budget Policy and Priorities, Climate Change/Air Quality, Endangered Species and Wildlife, Environment, Public Lands/Wilderness, and Water. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.


get more stories like this via email
more stories
Fort Laramie is one of Wyoming's many national historic sites. (Richard Wright/Danita Delimont/Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

The Wyoming Historic Preservation Office is a state office born from the National Historic Preservation Act, a federal law. After a three-month …


Environment

play sound

Colorado Parks and Wildlife wants to hear from all Coloradans about their updated 2025 State Wildlife Action Plan, a blueprint for preserving at-risk …

Social Issues

play sound

Advocacy groups are speaking out about how they believe congressional cuts to Medicaid will disproportionately affect caregiver LGBTQ+ communities in …


Senate Bill 31 doesn't change the abortion law but clarifies when a doctor can perform an abortion to save a pregnant person's life. (AndriiKoval/Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

Texas lawmakers passed the Life of the Mother Act during the legislative session. It was billed as legislation to clarify when doctors in the state …

Social Issues

play sound

Everybody loves to get something free and right now, kids aged 12-17 can get a fishing and hunting license at no cost from the Nevada Department of …

The Indianapolis Public School district is the state's largest, with a student enrollment of about 31,000, according to its website. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

School funding is ranked as the top education priority in a spring survey of 850 Marion County voters by the education organization RISE Indy…

Social Issues

play sound

A former Wisconsin mayor said the new federal budget will only worsen the current aging crisis families like hers have already been facing. Analysis …

Social Issues

play sound

While cuts to food support programs and Medicaid gained attention as the debate over the budget bill went on, there is also a long-term likelihood it …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021