U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd (R-Colo.) has introduced a bill directing the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to reissue multiple resource management plans (RMPs) to open up millions of acres to oil and gas development. The bill is co-sponsored by Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.), Gabe Evans (R-Colo.), Troy Downing (R-Mont.), and Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.). Zinke served as the secretary of the interior, which oversees the BLM, during the first half of Pres. Donald Trump’s first term. He resigned in 2019 after a series of ethics inquiries.
If passed, the bill, which Hurd is calling the “Productive Public Lands Act,” would compel the BLM to reissue RMPs for the Grand Junction and Colorado River Valley field offices in western Colorado, the Royal Gorge Field Office in eastern Colorado and along the Front Range, the Buffalo and Rock Springs in Wyoming, the Miles City Field Office in Montana, and the Lakeview Field Office in Oregon.
In addition, it would compel the BLM to select different management plans for big game habitat as it relates to oil and gas development in Colorado, as well as the Gunnison Sage Grouse management plan.
In a statement, Hurd wrote that the Biden administration “locked up access to viable lands throughout Colorado and the West.” He went on to say that reissuing these plans puts the country on “path to energy dominance allowing for a more secure and prosperous United States.”
But public lands advocates say the bill would reverse years of collaborative planning, and ignore both environmental analysis and public input.
Juli Slivka is the policy director for western Colorado conservation advocacy group Wilderness Workshop.
“We’re wondering why Representative Hurd thinks that Congress should be making decisions on local land use plans,” she said of the bill.
Resource management plans are typically drafted and selected by local BLM field offices in partnership with community stakeholders, like local governments, wildlife management agencies, industry groups, and with public feedback. The Colorado River Valley and Grand Junction Field Office RMPs both went through years of analysis and planning, and multiple rounds of public feedback.
She said the original plans did leave millions of acres open to oil and gas development, and that the bill mischaracterizes the adopted resource management plans as “locking up” public lands from oil and gas development.
“They actually leave hundreds of thousands of acres, nearly a million acres of our local public lands open to new oil and gas leasing and drilling, including almost all of the lands that are considered high potential for oil and gas development,” Slivka said of the Colorado River Valley and Grand Junction RMPs.
“This bill is out of line with our values and it just doesn’t reflect the facts on the ground which are that, as far as oil and gas goes, our public lands are already quite productive.”
She said the bill also ignores the collaborative process that went into those plans.
“Garfield and Mesa and Eagle counties were all cooperating agencies on those plans, and none of those counties objected to the final plans,” she said. “And the oil and gas industry also didn’t object to the final plans, which leaves us wondering who’s asking Representative Hurd to run this legislation.”
In a town hall on March 11, 2025, Hurd reiterated his support for federal public lands in Colorado.
“Protecting our public lands and making sure that they’re available for future generations is something that I take seriously and something I will definitely fight for,” he said in response to a question about whether he would oppose the selling off of public lands.
But this bill and some of Hurd’s other actions as a freshman representative have advocates questioning his commitment.
For one, Hurd is co-sponsoring a bill with Celeste Maloy (R-Utah) that would strip the president of the power to create national monuments through the Antiquities Act of 1906, and give that power solely to Congress.
Polling consistently shows that voters across the political spectrum value conservation over energy development on federal public lands, and that they want to see designations for national monuments kept in place. This year’s Conservation in the West Poll, part of Colorado College’s State of the Rockies project, showed that 72% of western voters wanted their elected officials to prioritize conservation over energy development on public lands, and that 88% say national monument designations should be kept in place.
“Western Coloradans want to see our public lands managed from true multiple uses, which include conservation, wildlife, habitat, recreation,” Slivka said, referencing the poll.
Copyright 2025 Rocky Mountain Community Radio. This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including Aspen Public Radio.
