COMMENTS ON SAGEBRUSH FOCAL AREA PROPOSED WITHDRAWAL DUE MARCH 30

The Bureau of Land Management has held eight public open houses throughout the West during February to gather input on the agency’s proposal to withdraw a subset of lands that are sage-grouse strongholds from future mining claims.  
 
The draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) analyzes five alternatives, ranging from no action to the withdrawal of approximately 10 million acres of federal locatable minerals in certain areas that are particularly crucial to the Greater Sage-Grouse in six states: Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming.

Neither the segregation, nor any subsequent withdrawal, would prohibit ongoing or future mining exploration or extraction operations on valid pre-existing claims. 
To develop the proposal and its alternatives, the BLM held public meetings in November 2015 in the six states to gather The BLM also incorporated a mineral resource assessment prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey to help develop a reasonably foreseeable development scenario for the draft EIS.
 
The proposal was published in the Federal Register on Dec. 30, 2016, and carries a 90-day public comment period that will end March 30, 2017. 

This link takes you to a fact sheet, the draft EIS and Notice of Amended Proposed Withdrawal, and a map of the proposed withdrawals.