The BLM Nevada State Office evaluated the 12 existing Resource Management Plans (RMPs) within the state and identified an assemblage of planning issues related to resource, environmental, ecological, scenic, social, and economic values, interests, and uses; some are new and unique to Nevada because of changed local circumstances, others are regionally common to BLM reflecting broad changes in the Western US, and many extend beyond a single Field Office or District Office boundary.

To address these critical issues that cross-cut field office and district boundaries, create new RMPs for the Gold Butte and Basin and Range National Monuments, and complete the different levels of work needed to modernize the existing RMPs, the BLM Nevada State Office proposes to “level up” the RMPs via BLM Nevada’s Resource Management Plan Modernization Project and Environmental Impact Statement.

The Project will follow BLM’s land use planning and National Environmental Policy Act processes to develop multiple RMPs within a single EIS. BLM’s mission directs the BLM to manage public lands under multiple use and sustained yield principles, and requires the BLM to evaluate conflicting interests, values, land uses, and resources. The interplay between these elements form the issues that BLM addresses via the land use planning process, and variations in addressing issues becomes the range of alternatives analyzed in the EIS. The alternatives’ analysis identifies the known and predicted effects that are related to the issues, and helps the State Director make an informed decision before signing the Project’s Record(s) of Decision for the Approved Resource Management Plans.