The entry, RIN 1004-AE83, proposes revisions to 43 CFR part 4700. The administration labels the action “deregulatory” and says it would add tools reflecting the Bureau of Land Management’s existing statutory authority. That label describes the administration’s classification; it does not tell the public what the proposed rule will say. The agenda lists a July 2026 target for a proposed rule, but no Federal Register citation appears on the entry. As of November 7, 2026, I could not locate a published proposed rule or public-comment docket under the RIN.
Until the actual text is published, the public cannot know whether the rule would change how BLM sets or reaches herd targets, uses fertility-control methods, conducts removals, or handles sales and transfers. It is fair to ask what could change; it is not yet possible to say that a draft rule would do so.Congress should open the record now. Its own Congressional Research Service explains that the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act gives agencies management authorities that include removal and, under specified circumstances, destruction of excess animals. Since 1982, BLM and the Forest Service have not used their authority to destroy healthy animals. Congress has generally relied on annual appropriations restrictions to bar the use of covered funds for destroying healthy horses and burros or for sales that result in their processing into commercial products. Those restrictions have appeared in most, but not all, annual Interior appropriations laws.
The distinction is important: the longstanding protections are not simply a permanent, across-the-board ban written into the 1971 Act. They have depended in significant part on recurring congressional funding language. The President’s FY2026 request omitted the usual restrictions, according to CRS. The FY2027 budget appendix likewise presents proposed appropriations language without those familiar prohibitions. Neither budget request repeals a protection. Congress decides what language becomes law.