Public Lands Need Modern Rules, Not Outdated Restrictions
By Bill Alspach
Trails Preservation Alliance
For too long, millions of acres of federal land have been governed by rules written for another era. Executive Orders 11644 and 11989, issued in the 1970s to manage off-road vehicle use, may have reflected legitimate concerns at the time. But after more than half a century, they had become blunt instruments: vague enough to invite litigation, rigid enough to limit access, and outdated enough to ignore today’s technology and land-management tools.
President Trump’s executive order, “Removing Unnecessary and Counterproductive Restrictions on Access to Federal Lands,” recognizes that public lands should not be managed as if the calendar still reads 1972. By rescinding those earlier orders, the administration has opened the door to a better balance: broader recreation access, clearer direction for land managers, and fewer regulatory obstacles for rural communities that depend on tourism, timber, energy, utilities, and responsible outdoor use.
The question is not whether public lands should be protected. They should. The question is whether protection still requires a decades-old framework that treats motorized access as a problem to be minimized rather than one legitimate use among many. Hunters, anglers, campers, trail riders, families with limited mobility, volunteer trail stewards, and people who live near federal lands all have a stake in access. For many, motorized travel is not a luxury; it is the only practical way to reach remote trailheads, campsites, grazing allotments, utility corridors, and backcountry work sites.
The old orders required agencies to apply “minimization” criteria that sounded reasonable in theory but proved difficult to apply consistently. Terms such as aesthetic values, scenic values, user conflict, and significant disruption are inherently subjective. In practice, that subjectivity often produced caution, delay, and closure. For litigants, it also became a tool for challenging travel plans and pressuring agencies to restrict access even where responsible use could be managed.
That does not serve the public well. Public lands are meant for multiple use. They are not museums behind a rope line, nor private playgrounds for one preferred form of recreation.
Hikers, hunters, ranchers, utility crews, snowmobilers, dirt-bike riders, and families in side-by-sides all deserve a fair hearing in land-use planning. Equal access does not mean unlimited access; it means decisions should be based on current law, science, technology, and site-specific conditions rather than legacy mandates that presume motorized use must be suppressed.
Modern land management is better equipped for that task than it was 50 years ago. Digital mapping, satellite imagery, GPS data, route inventories, seasonal closures, permit systems, monitoring tools, and targeted enforcement give agencies better options than broad restrictions. Where a route threatens sensitive habitat, historic resources, erosion-prone soils, or watershed health, agencies can and should respond. Where routes can be maintained, monitored, and used responsibly, they should remain open.
The economic case is just as strong. In rural communities across the West and beyond, access is not an abstract policy debate. It means hotel rooms, fuel stops, repair shops, guide services, restaurants, equipment dealers, races, trail events, volunteer maintenance days, and family trips that help keep small-town economies alive. It also means practical access to power lines, communication sites, timber stands, grazing areas, fire breaks, and energy infrastructure.
Critics will argue that rescinding the old orders invites damage to public lands. That concern deserves respect, but it should not be used to defend every closure or preserve every outdated rule. Responsible access and conservation are not opposites. People who use public lands often become their most committed stewards. Off-highway vehicle clubs clear trails, fund signage, teach ethics, report damage, and partner with agencies. Treating those users as adversaries rather than partners wastes one of the best resources land managers have.
The better path is not blanket closure or blanket opening. It is accountable, transparent, site-specific management. Keep fragile areas protected. Close routes when real damage occurs. Enforce rules against reckless users. But recognize that access itself is a public value. A trail that is legally open, responsibly maintained, and widely enjoyed is not a failure of conservation; it is public land fulfilling its purpose.
Rescinding Executive Orders 11644 and 11989 is not the end of land management. It is an opportunity to modernize it. Federal agencies still have environmental laws, planning processes, and practical tools to protect resources. What they no longer need is an extra layer of vague, half-century-old criteria that too often made access the exception rather than the rule.
Public lands belong to the public. That should mean more than admiration from a distance. It should mean real, responsible access for Americans who hunt, fish, ride, camp, work, maintain infrastructure, support rural economies, and pass down outdoor traditions to the next generation. Updating the rules to reflect today’s realities is not an attack on public lands. It is a reaffirmation of why they are public in the first place.