Sponsors (2)
Introduced June 4, 2025 by Ronald Lee Wyden · Last progress June 4, 2025
The bill expands tribal land sovereignty and long-term conservation protections while giving local ranchers more operational flexibility and funding for local projects, but it raises federal costs, can limit some development and extractive activity, and creates oversight and governance risks that could harm sensitive ecosystems or stall local restoration efforts.
Burns Paiute Tribe and other indigenous communities gain ~30,000 acres taken into trust, boosting tribal land sovereignty, enabling co-stewardship, and protecting cultural and natural resources on those lands.
Residents and visitors benefit from permanent protection of ~1.1 million acres as wilderness, preserving recreation, scenery, and wildlife habitat and supporting local outdoor recreation economies.
Ranchers and grazing permittees gain clearer rules and operational flexibility (up to 14-day seasonal adjustments and short-term pasture/water changes with 2-business-day notice), reducing dispute risk and helping livestock operations respond to weather, fire, and drought.
Allowing permit-level flexibility and narrower oversight risks ecological harm—the combination of definitional choices and relaxed review could prioritize operational flexibility over stronger environmental protections on sensitive habitats.
Wilderness designations and withdrawals (including mineral/geothermal restrictions and some lands taken into trust) limit future extractive uses and development, potentially reducing jobs, revenue, and access for local industries (grazing, mining, energy) in nearby communities.
The bill increases federal administrative and implementation responsibilities (BLM/Interior mapping, monitoring, oversight, plus new grant and trust-implementation funding), which raises costs for taxpayers and requires additional federal staffing and resources.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes a local grazing-flexibility program, creates an 18-member advisory group, designates ~1.1M acres as wilderness, and takes specified tribal lands into trust with $2M for implementation.
Creates a local grazing-management program in Malheur County that gives grazing permit holders limited short-term flexibility to adjust season dates, pasture rotations, and water placement to improve rangeland ecological health. It establishes an 18-member Malheur C.E.O. Group to advise and coordinate, designates about 1.1 million acres of Federal land in the county as new wilderness units, and places several parcels into trust for the Burns Paiute Tribe with $2,000,000 authorized for implementation in FY2026.