Congress Moves to Scrap BLM’s Alaska Reserve Plan: What Nullifying the New Rules Means for Public Lands

This joint resolution is a legislative action aimed squarely at erasing a specific rule recently put forward by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Specifically, it seeks to nullify the BLM’s "National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska Integrated Activity Plan Record of Decision." If passed, this resolution uses the Congressional Review Act (CRA) mechanism to declare the BLM’s new rule null and void, meaning it would have no legal effect whatsoever. Think of it as a legislative veto that stops the new management plan for the massive, ecologically sensitive National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A) before it can start.

The Alaska Reserve: What’s at Stake?

The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska is the largest tract of public land in the U.S., covering over 23 million acres. It’s managed for both resource extraction (oil and gas) and environmental protection. When the BLM issues an Integrated Activity Plan (IAP), it sets the ground rules—deciding which areas are open to drilling, which are restricted, and what environmental protections must be followed. The resolution doesn’t create a new plan; it just kills the most recent one. Because this is a CRA action, it means the previous, older regulatory framework would snap back into place, or the area would revert to a status quo that the new BLM rule was trying to change.

The Policy Blunt Force Trauma of the CRA

Using the CRA is like using a sledgehammer to fix a watch. It’s a fast-track process that allows Congress to overturn an agency rule with a simple majority vote, and it prevents the agency from issuing a “substantially similar” rule in the future without specific legislative authorization. For regular folks, this matters because it means Congress is overriding the detailed, often years-long planning process conducted by the expert agency (the BLM) and replacing it with... nothing. It’s a policy vacuum. If the disapproved BLM rule included new safeguards for sensitive wildlife habitat—say, restricting drilling near calving grounds for caribou—those proposed protections are gone, and the older, potentially less stringent rules apply.

Who Wins and Who Pays?

This resolution has clear winners and losers. On the winning side are entities that might have found the new BLM rule too restrictive, such as certain oil and gas developers who want fewer limitations on where and how they can operate within the NPR-A. By killing the new plan, they benefit from the reinstatement of older, likely less restrictive regulations. On the flip side, environmental groups and those concerned with conservation are negatively impacted. They lose any new protections or resource management strategies that the BLM rule contained, particularly in a region that is increasingly vulnerable to climate change and industrial activity. This action essentially removes a layer of regulatory oversight designed to balance resource use with environmental stewardship in a critical public land area.