Health of Public Range Land in the Western U.S: Environmental Impacts and Policy

   

      Livestock grazing on the extensive federal land in the U.S. West has long been practiced and occasionally been contentious. Recent Trump administration cuts to BLM monitoring of range lands have been criticized by the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). They note:

“Statistics compiled from scientific assessments by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) show that the percentage of BLM lands classified as healthy dropped from 72% in 2022 to 58% in 2024, with future evaluations in doubt due to budget cuts.”

     That certainly suggests that during the Biden years, the health of range lands had been declining, and also suggests that monitoring should continue. Rocky Mountain PEER director Chandra Rosenthal noted in 2024.

“By its own measures, BLM does not deserve passing marks on its main job – land management.”

     BLM began its Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring (AIM) program in 2011. PEER notes that AIM provides critical data on land health, invasive species, and native plant communities, which are important for detecting trends, planning adaptive management, and evaluating grazed lands. In 2025, about 20% of BLM’s staff was cut.

“Effective public lands management begins with understanding land health,” said PEER’s Western Lands and Rocky Mountain Advocate Chandra Rosenthal. “Without the data the AIM program provides, BLM is flying blind.”

     As noted, range land health has declined in recent years, and monitoring is the key to both knowing that and making fixes that can be verified. Two important and often related issues affecting range land health are the lack of native plants and the proliferation of invasive plants.

PEER:” Without AIM, BLM loses its ability to measure and understand changes in land health. AIM data are increasingly used for Land Health Standards evaluations, grazing permit renewals, and National Environmental Policy Act analyses. Without monitoring, decisions regarding land health become harder to understand, more difficult to manage, and less defensible in court.”

     PEER came out against automatic grazing permit renewals and NEPA exemptions proposed in a Senate bill. They pointed out that automatic renewals already occur if NEPA reviews are not completed on time.

     PEER believes overgrazing is contributing to the health decline of range lands, while the Trump administration wants to maximize commercial grazing on federal lands. Regarding a March 31, 2026, MOU between the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior, they note:

“The new policy implements “a goal of a no net loss of Animal Unit Months (AUMs) within allotments” and maximizing “authorization of livestock use” across vast Western rangelands.”

“The stated purpose of the agreement is to promote commercial grazing on these public lands and to“protect America’s ranching heritage.”

     Below are some of the ways the MOU benefits commercial interests:

     PEER notes that the environmental impacts of livestock grazing, including habitat quality, riparian functioning, and endangered species, exceed those of mining and logging combined.

     In a July 2026 article, PEER senior counsel Jeff Ruch noted that Trump’s legacy on conservation will be very poor. However, several of the policy reasons he cites for this view have to do with actions associated with shortening and streamlining permitting, which is clearly needed for many infrastructure, energy, and mining projects. The Trump people obviously support drilling, mining, logging, grazing, hunting, and off-road vehicle use on public range lands and seek to facilitate those activities and release some of the bureaucratic red tape. I don’t think loosening some of those rules to optimize the economics of those commercial ventures is necessarily a bad thing. I do think that pausing or eliminating the environmental monitoring of range lands is ill-advised, however. If more of these lands are drilled, mined, logged, grazed, hunted, and ridden on, it should lead to more monitoring, not less. Perhaps the companies commercializing those activities should support the monitoring efforts through funding or more self-reporting and other means.  

 

References:

 

Trump Grazing Policy: Leave No Cow Behind: Mandate of “No Net Loss” of Commercial Livestock on Public Range. Public Employees for Envornmental Responsibility. April 14, 2026. Trump Grazing Policy: Leave No Cow Behind - PEER.org

Letter re: S. 2787 “Grasslands Grazing Act of 2025.” Public Employees for Envornmental Responsibility. March 4, 2026. Letter re: S. 2787 “Grasslands Grazing Act of 2025”

As Rangeland Health Declines, BLM Stops Monitoring: Science-Based Land Management Falls Victim to Trump Budget Cuts. Public Employees for Envornmental Responsibility. March 26, 2026. As Rangeland Health Declines, BLM Stops Monitoring

Ruination of Public Lands: All Uses, Everywhere, All the Time, Without Limit. Jeff Ruch. Public Employees for Envornmental Responsibility.  July 8, 2026. Ruination of Public Lands: All Uses, Everywhere, All the Time, Without Limit 

America’s Ailing Overgrazed Rangelands. Chandra Rosenthal. Public Employees for Envornmental Responsibility. America’s Ailing Overgrazed Rangelands