The Bureau of Land Management will publish a final rule soon allowing the nation’s public lands to be leased for environmental protection, a Thursday news release from the Interior Department said.

The rule, which both proponents and detractors say marks a shift in the agency’s focus toward conservation, directs land managers at the agency to identify landscapes in need of restoration and to create plans to fill those needs.

It also creates two new types of leases focused on protecting natural areas. The BLM already leases parcels of land for extractive industries including energy development, mining and livestock grazing.

Western lands fight erupts over Bureau of Land Management’s conservation proposal

The rule is likely to set off a conflict in Congress, where Republicans immediately on Thursday renewed their criticism of President Joe Biden’s conservation policies.

In a deviation from the March 2023 draft rule that proposed a new category of conservation leases, the final rule will allow two new types of leases: restoration and mitigation.

Restoration leases will be “a tool for investment in the health of our public lands” an agency fact sheet reads. Lessees would be empowered to work to restore lands, including those impacted by other uses.

Similarly, mitigation leases would be a tool to offset the impacts of other BLM land uses. The agency said an example could be a solar power company that has a facility on BLM land may receive a mitigation lease to restore nearby habitat to mitigate the impact of its development.

The rule is in line with BLM’s multiple-use mandate that requires balancing energy development, mining, recreation and other uses on the nation’s public lands, the agency said.

“As stewards of America’s public lands, the Interior Department takes seriously our role in helping bolster landscape resilience in the face of worsening climate impacts,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.

“Today’s final rule helps restore balance to our public lands as we continue using the best-available science to restore habitats, guide strategic and responsible development, and sustain our public lands for generations to come.”

BLM released a 178-page preliminary version of the rule Thursday, saying a substantially similar version would be published as a final rule “in the coming days.”

Congressional fight ahead

The rule has met with polarized reaction since the draft proposal was released in March 2023.

Reaction to the final rule from across the political spectrum began arriving within minutes of the announcement Thursday.

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Conservation groups and environmental advocates cheered the rule for prioritizing conservation, while Republicans worried it would restrict other types of uses on public lands.

The Mountain Pact, a coalition of local leaders from Western states, released a statement praising the rule.

“The BLM’s Public Lands Rule highlights the need for the agency to work with local communities to focus on the conservation of land, water, and wildlife to ensure communities can protect future access to federal public lands while combating the growing impacts of climate change,” Patrice Horstman, the chair of the Coconino County, Arizona, Board of Supervisors, said in the statement.

David Willms, associate vice president for public lands at the National Wildlife Federation, said in a written statement the rule gives BLM “new tools to restore and conserve degraded lands, while supporting robust local economies. The rule will help the agency identify intact landscapes that wildlife depend on for survival, which will ensure that they thrive for decades to come.”

Democrats in Congress also applauded the measure.

Colorado’s Diana DeGette, the ranking member on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Climate, called the move “a significant accomplishment for land conservation and wildlife protection.”

“I am proud that BLM and the Biden Administration are continuing to lead in defending our natural world,” she said in a statement.

Pledge to repeal

But Republicans pledged to undo it.

Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, promised he and North Dakota’s senior Republican senator would challenge the rule with a resolution under the Congressional Review Act. The law allows lawmakers to try to repeal executive branch rulemaking.

“The people of Wyoming depend on access to public lands for their livelihoods — including energy and mineral production, grazing, and recreation,” Barrasso said in a statement “With this rule, President Biden is allowing federal bureaucrats to destroy our way of life. Senator John Hoeven and I will introduce a Congressional Review Act resolution to repeal this outrageous rule.”

The closely divided U.S. Senate has approved Congressional Review Act resolutions on environmental and agricultural issues in which rural-state Democrats or those in tough reelection races, such as centrist West Virginian Joe Manchin III, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown or Jon Tester of Montana, align with Republicans.

Republicans on the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee approved a bill, sponsored by Utah Republican John Curtis, last year to block the rule from taking effect. The legislation has not received a vote from the full House.

“This rule from the Biden Administration undermines the very people who rely on our federal lands for ranching, grazing, recreation, and beyond,” Curtis said in a Thursday release.

House Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman of Arkansas said Thursday he would do “everything in (his) power” to get Curtis’ bill through the House.

The outage of 911 systems in several states Wednesday evening was caused by the installation of a light pole, according to Lumen, a company that supports some of those systems.

“On April 17, some customers in Nevada, South Dakota, and Nebraska experienced an outage due to a third-party company installing a light pole – unrelated to our services,” Lumen Global Issues Director Mark Molzen told CNN Thursday morning.

An outage was also reported in a fourth state, Texas. Molzen said Lumen – a networking company that provides enhanced 911 services to local communities in multiple states – does not provide 911 services in Texas.

The outage lasted less than three hours, according to Molzen, who said the company “worked hard to fix it as quickly as possible.”

“We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate our customers’ patience and understanding,” Molzen said.

Service had been largely restored by Thursday morning, hours after agencies in the four states announced outages in multiple cities, with some urging residents in need of assistance to either text 911 or call using a landline. The outages had been largely addressed within hours, however, including in cities like Sioux Falls and Rapid City, South Dakota, and Las Vegas.

As of Thursday morning, some agencies had yet to confirm service had been restored, including those in Del Rio, Texas, and Douglas and Chase counties, Nebraska – the former of which encompasses Omaha.

The Federal Communications Commission confirmed on X that it was “aware of reports of 911-related outages and we are currently investigating.”

Agencies point to texts, landlines as workarounds during outages

The outages surfaced Wednesday evening, as agencies like the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department announced disruptions hindering their ability to communicate with residents, who were urged to text 911 instead of calling.

While the department initially said it had no timeline for restoring service, the interruption had been resolved within about two hours.

According to its post on X, authorities were able to see mobile numbers that had contacted 911, allowing them to reach back out to callers to provide assistance. During the outage, calls made from landlines during the outage were not working, nor were calls to its non-emergency line.

The South Dakota Department of Public Safety also announced service had been restored for the South Dakota 911 system after earlier saying in a statement it was “aware of a 911 service interruption throughout the state.”

Similarly, the department said during the outage that texting 911 was still “operating in most locations,” otherwise residents in need could contact emergency services using non-emergency lines.

Officials in Sioux Falls and Rapid City also reported the resumption of 911 services on their respective Facebook pages. The Rapid City Police Department urged residents to “only utilize 911 services only if an emergency situation exists.” The City of Sioux Falls said residents could again call or text 911 in case of emergencies.

In Texas, the City of Del Rio Police Department said it was aware of an outage with a “major cellular carrier” affecting residents’ ability to reach 911, emphasizing “the issue is with the carrier, and not the City of Del Rio systems.” Residents were told to contact 911 using a landline “or another carrier” if unable to reach emergency services on their cell phones.

Portions of Nebraska, including Chase County, reported outages as well. Officials in the state’s capital city of Lincoln, however, told CNN their 911 system was operational and not affected.

“911 is down across the State of Nebraska again for all cellular carriers except T-Mobile,” Chase County said in a Facebook post. “Landlines can still get through to 911.”

“Dial 911 on a mobile device, and we will be able to see your number and will call you back right away. 911 calls from landlines are NOT working at the moment,” the department initially wrote on Facebook. “There is no estimate for service restoration.”

Outages highlight potential vulnerabilities

While Lumen’s statement indicated the cause of the outage was not malicious, the service interruptions raise questions about the fragility of the nation’s 911 infrastructure, particularly in light of a Department of Homeland Security assessment last week that found emergency services are vulnerable to cyberattacks – and that the exploitation of personal data stolen during those ransomware attacks “poses a persistent criminal threat to victims.”

According to the assessment, such attacks have disrupted 911 networks and local police departments. It also highlighted that emergency service systems are often “interconnected,” which makes it more difficult to protect them from cyberattacks.

Once ransomware actors have hacked systems, the assessment also found they then “routinely leak, sell, or further exploit a victim’s data” for criminals to use for other crimes.

Bulletins like the DHS assessment are distributed to local law enforcement and companies that run critical infrastructure.

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911 service crashed across at least three states Wednesday evening.

Several municipalities in Nevada and Nebraska — and the entire state of South Dakota — reported emergency outages.

The service seemingly dropped at the same time, with Las Vegas police first reporting that 911 calls weren’t making it through to dispatchers.

“Dial 911 on a mobile device, and we will be able to see your number and will call you back right away,” the Las Vegas Metro Police Department said at 7:30 p.m. local time.

“911 calls from landlines are NOT working at the moment.”

The roughly 656,000 residents of Las Vegas were urged instead to text 911, a portion of the service that wasn’t interrupted.

The nearby city of Henderson reported the same outages, but like Las Vegas, was unable to provide a timeframe for the service to be reinstated.

In Nebraska, the Buffalo County and City of Kearney Emergency Call Center also reported outages but didn’t specify the extent of the interrupted service, instead asking those in need to dial alternate, non-emergency numbers.

South Dakota was the only one of the three states to confirm that the outages affected the entire state — meaning nearly 910,000 people there were without the ability to call 911 Wednesday night.

The Rapid City Police Department emphasized that calls to 911 affected every South Dakotan — and warned people to stop testing whether their call would go through.

“Pennington County 911 is getting inundated with 911 calls from residents who are ‘testing the system.’ While the calls themselves aren’t connecting, dispatchers can still see who is attempting to call and the phone number from the caller,” police said.

“Each 911 attempt is getting a call-back from dispatch, however the workload generated from unnecessary calls is hampering their efforts to get appropriate resources where they need to go.

“PLEASE DON’T CALL 911 UNLESS AN ACTUAL EMERGENCY EXISTS.”

The cause of the widespread outages — and why the three states were the only ones affected — was not clear Wednesday.

South Dakota is linked to Nebraska by its southern border, but Nevada is roughly 1,000 miles away from either.