Travel Management on Public Lands in Montrose, Delta, San Miguel, and Ouray Counties, CO

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Bureau of Land Management</SUBAGY> <CFR>43 CFR Part 8360</CFR> <DEPDOC>[BLM_CO_FRN_MO4500179563]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Travel Management on Public Lands in Montrose, Delta, San Miguel, and Ouray Counties, CO</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Land Management, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final supplementary rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is finalizing a supplementary rule to regulate travel management decisions in the Dry Creek Travel Management Plan (TMP) issued December 1, 2009; the Ridgway TMP issued May 10, 2013; and the Norwood-Burn Canyon TMP issued November 14, 2014. The supplementary rule will apply to public lands in Montrose, Delta, San Miguel, and Ouray counties, Colorado, administered by the BLM Uncompahgre Field Office. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The final supplementary rule is effective on October 9, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may send inquiries by mail, electronic mail, or hand-delivery. Mail or hand delivery: Caroline Kilbane, Outdoor Recreation Planner, BLM Uncompahgre Field Office, 2505 S Townsend Ave., Montrose, CO 81401. Electronic mail: <E T="03">ckilbane@blm.gov</E> . <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Caroline Kilbane, Outdoor Recreation Planner, at (970) 240-5300 or by email at <E T="03">ckilbane@blm.gov</E> . Individuals in the United States who are deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing or have a speech disability may dial 711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access telecommunications relay services. Individuals outside the United States should use the relay services offered within their country to make international calls to the point-of- contact in the United States. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> The BLM is establishing this supplementary rule under the authority of 43 CFR 8365.1-6, which authorizes BLM State Directors to establish supplementary rules for the protection of persons, property, and public lands and resources. In March 2007, the BLM published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> a Notice of Intent to Amend the Uncompahgre Basin and San Juan/San Miguel Resource Management Plans (RMPs) and prepare the Dry Creek Comprehensive Travel Management Plan, Colorado (72 FR 10243). The RMP amendment, approved in June 2010, changed off-highway vehicle designations in identified areas from “Open or Limited” to “Limited to existing routes year-long or with seasonal restrictions” until further route-by-route planning could be completed. The BLM issued decision records for the Dry Creek TMP on December 1, 2009; the Ridgway TMP on May 13, 2013; and the Norwood-Burn Canyon TMP on November 14, 2014. The BLM approved the TMPs after multiple public comment opportunities and coordination with local government. On April 2, 2020, the BLM approved a revised Uncompahgre RMP that includes the Dry Creek, Ridgway, and Norwood-Burn Canyon travel management areas (TMAs) and brings forward from the TMPs the travel management decisions for these areas. This rule will implement and enforce several key decisions in the TMPs to protect natural resources, enhance public safety, and help improve habitat quality, big-game winter range, and migration corridors. The rule does not affect other existing rules. The rule applies to more than 121,000 acres of public land within the Dry Creek, Ridgway, and Norwood-Burn Canyon TMAs administered by the BLM Uncompahgre Field Office in Montrose, Delta, San Miguel, and Ouray counties, Colorado. This rule is necessary to regulate travel management decisions in the TMPs that restrict certain activities and define allowable uses intended to enhance public safety, protect natural and cultural resources, eliminate non-motorized impacts on sensitive species habitat, and reduce conflicts among public land users. The rule makes enforceable restrictions limiting the operation of mechanized vehicles to designated travel routes identified in the TMPs, with the following exemptions: (1) big game hunters are permitted to use mechanized game carts off designated travel routes outside of designated wilderness and wilderness study areas only when necessary to retrieve big game animals during authorized hunting seasons; (2) mechanized vehicles are permitted to pull off designated travel routes up to one vehicle-width from the edge of a roadway to accommodate parking, dispersed camping, or general recreation; and (3) in the Dry Creek TMA, mechanized vehicles are permitted to pull off within 300 feet of a designated travel route in a designated camping area identified by a BLM sign or map. The rule makes enforceable seasonal restrictions on travel in certain priority big game wintering habitats identified by the BLM Uncompahgre Field Office, in consultation with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, as the most important big game winter use areas within the TMAs. These seasonal restrictions allow for human access during non-restricted periods while closing key areas during critical seasons to preserve the health of big game herds. The rule makes enforceable authorized dispersed camping in the Norwood-Burn Canyon and Dry Creek TMAs unless a BLM sign or map identifies an area as closed to such use, as well as authorized camping in designated campgrounds in the Dry Creek TMA identified by a BLM sign or map. The rule implements and makes enforceable the closure of the Ridgway TMA to overnight use. In the Ridgway TMA, the rule makes enforceable the requirement that pets be leashed in the Uncompahgre Riverway Area and at all trailheads, as identified by BLM signs or maps, and under audible or physical control in all other areas. In the Norwood-Burn Canyon TMA, the rule makes enforceable the requirement that pets be leashed at trailheads, as identified by BLM signs or maps, and under audible or physical control in all other areas. In the Dry Creek TMA, the rule makes enforceable the requirement that pets be under audible or physical control. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Discussion of Public Comments and Final Supplementary Rule</HD> The BLM published a proposed supplementary rule on November 28, 2022 (87 FR 72954), soliciting public comments for 60 days. During the comment period, the BLM received one submission from a conservation organization. The comment supported the proposed rule and expressed support for protecting big game wintering habitat. No changes were made to the final supplementary rule as a result of the public comment. The final rule updates Rule No. 1 under the <E T="03">Ridgway TMA Prohibited Acts</E> section to clarify that the big game seasonal closure applies to trail uses on designated routes only and is not an area closure. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Procedural Matters</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Regulatory Planning and Review (Executive Orders (E.O.s) 12866 and 13563)</HD> E.O. 12866, as amended by E.O. 14094, provides that the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and Budget will review all significant rules. This rule is not significant under E.O. 12866. The rule will not have an effect of $100 million or more on the economy. The rule does not adversely affect in a material way the economy; productivity; competition; jobs; the environment; public health or safety; or State, local, or Tribal governments or communities. The rule will not create a serious inconsistency or otherwise interfere with an action taken or planned by another agency. The rule will not materially alter the budgetary effects of entitlements, grants, user fees, or loan programs, or the rights or obligations of their recipients; nor does it raise novel legal or policy issues. The rule will not affect legal commercial activity; it merely imposes limitations on certain recreational activities on certain public lands to protect natural resources and enhance public safety. E.O. 13563 reaffirms the principles of E.O. 12866 while calling for improvement in the nation's regulatory system to promote predictability, to reduce uncertainty, and to use the best, most innovative, and least burdensome tools for achieving regulatory ends. The Executive order directs agencies to consider regulatory approaches that reduce burdens and maintain flexibility and freedom of choice for the public where these approaches are relevant, feasible, and consistent with regulatory objectives. E.O. 13563 emphasizes further that regulations must be based on the best available science and that the rulemaking process must allow for public participation and an open exchange of ideas. We have developed this rule in a manner consistent with these requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Regulatory Flexibility Act</HD> Congress enacted the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) of 1980, as amended (5 U.S.C. 601-612), to ensure that government regulations do not unnecessarily or disproportionately burden small entities. The RFA requires a regulatory flexibility analysis if a rule would have a significant economic impact, either detrimental or beneficial, on a substantial number of small entities. This rule has no effect on business entities of any size and merely imposes reasonable restrictions on certain recreational activities on certain public lands to protect natural resources and the environment and human health and safety. Therefore, the BLM has determined under the RFA this rule does not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Congressional Review Act</HD> This supplementary rule does not constitute a “major rule” as defined at 5 U.S.C. 804(2), the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act. The rule will not: (a) Have an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more; (b) Cause a major increase in costs or ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━