A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to "Buffalo Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment".
This joint resolution nullifies the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on November 20, 2024, which amended the 2015 resource management plan (RMP) for the Buffalo Field Office in Wyoming to make no federal coal available for future leasing. Thus, the joint resolution requires the BLM to follow the 2015 RMP as it was before it was amended in 2024 and make coal available for leasing. By way of background, the BLM developed the amendment to the plan in response to Western Organization of Resource Councils v. Bureau of Land Management. In that case, the court held that the BLM must evaluate the climate impacts of federal coal leasing in the Buffalo Field Office and include alternatives to limit or stop coal leasing in the evaluation in order to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act. After conducting the evaluation, the BLM amended the RMP and made BLM-managed coal resources in the Buffalo Field Office planning area unavailable for future leasing.
What this bill touches.
Who it helps · who it burdens.
Who it helps
- Coal companies that could seek new federal leases in the Buffalo Field Office planning areaWith the 2024 decision void, federal coal in that planning area is no longer closed to further leasing consideration, so acreage the decision had ruled out can again be considered for new leases (Provision 1).
Who it burdens
- The Bureau of Land ManagementIts November 20, 2024 record of decision and plan amendment lose all legal force, and it may not adopt a substantially similar decision unless Congress passes a new law (Provisions 1 and 2).
Who opposes it
- People and groups whose interest is keeping federal coal in this planning area closed to new leasing in order to hold down greenhouse-gas emissionsThe agency's own notice says the cancelled amendment reduced greenhouse-gas emissions from developing and burning federal coal in the planning area; cancelling it reverses that decision and blocks a substantially similar one without new legislation (Provisions 1 and 2).
The provisions, in plain language.
Cancels the Bureau of Land Management's November 20, 2024 record of decision and land-use plan amendment for its Buffalo Field Office, so that decision has no legal force. That decision had made about 413,250 acres of federal coal - the acreage the agency's development-potential screen identified - unavailable for any further consideration for new coal leasing; with the decision void, the coal-leasing allocation that was in place before it applies again.
Treats that agency decision as a 'rule' that Congress can strike down under the Congressional Review Act, pointing to a Government Accountability Office opinion dated September 18, 2025. Under that Act, the agency may not put a substantially similar decision back in place unless Congress passes a new law allowing it.