After a proposed provision in the recent Republican tax break and spending cut law that would have opened up millions of acres of federal lands for sale was axed, Colorado climate leaders and public lands advocates still didn’t have much to celebrate. That’s because the massive federal policy bill‘s surviving provisions governing oil and gas leasing on federal lands are “an egregious step back for the environment,” according to Melissa Hornbein, a senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. … Allison Henderson, the southern Rockies director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said this provision poses a “significant risk” to the environment, water supplies and vulnerable species of animals that live on public lands, because resource management plans “do not provide kind of the nitty-gritty, site-specific types of mitigation measures that are necessary.”

Other public land news:

• Public News Service: Colorado officials urge congressional delegates to support public lands
• Writers on the Range: Blog: Public land goes back on the chopping block
• New Geography: Blog: Selling the public lands
• The Land Desk: Blog: MAGA continues to pillage public lands