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The Biden-Harris administration today submitted to Congress the President’s budget for Fiscal Year 2022. The budget includes a $1.6 billion investment for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to promote a multiple use and sustained yield mandate, including enhancing recreational opportunities for all Americans, creating a conservation stewardship legacy while generating revenue, and utilizing our natural resources. 

The budget makes historic investments that will help the Department address the climate crisis while creating good-paying union jobs and investing in healthy lands, waters, and economies of energy communities across the country.

“The Interior Department plays an important role in the President’s plan to reinvest in the American people. From bolstering climate resiliency and increasing renewable energy, to supporting Tribal nations and advancing environmental justice, President Biden’s budget will make much-needed investments in communities and projects that will advance our vision for a robust and equitable clean energy future,” said Secretary Deb Haaland.

“For the past seven decades, the Bureau of Land Management has been charged with shared public land stewardship for the American people,” said Nada Wolff Culver, BLM Deputy Director, Policy and Programs. “On our 75th anniversary, this proposed budget will support bold steps in conservation, restoration, and Tribal consultation in order to meet the President’s goal of tackling the climate crisis, while managing approximately 245 million acres of public land under our multiple-use and sustained yield mandate.”

To advance the Administration’s goals, the BLM’s budget would:

• Strengthen climate resilience and conservation partnerships. The 2022 budget proposes program increases totaling $160 million to enhance the restoration and conservation of BLM-managed lands, which will contribute to President Biden’s goal of conserving 30% of the Nation’s land and water by 2030. Funding increases will focus on restoring landscape connectivity and function; conserving and restoring lands to combat climate change; improving water resources; restoring legacy disturbances, and decision support for adaptive management. As an example, in Rangeland Management and Aquatic Habitat Management, respectively, increases of $3.1 million and $5.2 million will be targeted to invasive species management and other forms of restoration, in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.  These investments will help address a pervasive problem on BLM lands and waters that, for terrestrial ecosystems, feeds and is worsened by the cycle of wildland fire and its contribution to climate change. Similarly, BLM will dedicate a $6.1 million increase in Wildlife Habitat Management to advance efforts to identify, protect, conserve, and restore functional, landscape-level management of habitat for the 3,000 species that live on BLM-managed lands, including for wildlife migration, dispersal, and daily movement corridors for big game, migratory birds, pollinators, and at-risk species. The BLM budget includes $16.5 million to help establish and support a Civilian Climate Corps to work in support of the Bureau’s restoration and conservation goals.  The request also targets increases of $10.2 million to BLM’s national monuments and national conservation areas and $35.0 million to the Wild Horse and Burro Management program.  The BLM’s efforts to strengthen climate resilience are also supported with a $10.0 million increase to its Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring Strategy.
• Oversee the responsible development of renewable energy on public lands. Combating and mitigating climate change also depends on moving our Nation away from its heavy reliance on fossil fuels. The BLM can and will play a significant role in promoting the development of renewable energy by providing sites for environmentally sound development of renewable energy on public lands. Public lands managed by the BLM have excellent solar and wind energy potential and significant geothermal resources. The 2022 budget request proposes program increases of $25 million to enable the BLM to aggressively promote and facilitate increased renewable energy development, including $14 million in the Renewable Energy program and $11 million in the Resource Management Planning program. The funds will support siting, leasing, processing rights-of-way applications, and oversight of renewable energy projects and transmission lines connecting to renewable energy projects. The BLM expects renewable energy demand and workload to increase significantly as more utilities and States seek to increase the amount of renewable energy in their electric power portfolios.
• Create good paying jobs with a free and fair chance to join a union. The 2022 BLM budget includes an increase of $50.8 million to create good paying jobs with a free and fair chance to join a union through abandoned well remediation and mine reclamation.  This investment will address the environmental, health, and public safety risks associated with abandoned wells and mines and help ease the transition in energy and mining communities as the economy transitions toward cleaner energy sources.
• Enhance recreational opportunities. The 2022 BLM budget provides significant resources in support of the Administration’s efforts to enhance recreational opportunities and access, including a $3.2 million increase in Recreation Resources Management.  This increase will help restore landscape connectivity and function by enabling BLM to maintain and improve recreation sites in a manner that mitigates conflicts with sensitive natural resources, such as by altering traffic and concentrated use patterns. 

Enacting the budget policies into law this year would strengthen our nation’s economy and lay the foundation for shared prosperity, while also improving our nation’s long-term fiscal health.

To learn more about BLM's budget, please visit: https://www.blm.gov/about/budget. For more information on the President’s FY 2022 budget, please visit: https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/.