Trump dumps Biden environmental review for 3,244 oil and gas leases
The Trump administration will forgo an environmental review for thousands of federal oil and natural gas leases, including some in Wyoming, at the center of a 10-year legal and political battle.
The Interior Department announced Thursday it will rescind a last-minute Biden-era notification to conduct a full environmental impact statement review for 3,244 oil and gas leases issued between 2015 and 2020 in seven western states. There are other review processes, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, to legally satisfy the cumulative court orders and settlement agreements stemming from the years-long battle.
BLM published its official notice to ditch the review in the Federal Register on Friday. The BLM “is evaluating options for compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act for these oil and gas leasing decisions,” according to the agency.
One group involved in the decade-long legal battle questioned that approach.
“We don’t know what that’s going to look like or, honestly, if it will even happen,” WildEarth Guardians Climate and Health Advocate Melissa Troutman told WyoFile on Thursday.
The Johnny Behind the Rocks mountain biking and hiking recreation area is managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. (courtesy of Bob Wicks/BLM)
WildEarth Guardians initially sued the BLM in 2016, pressuring the agency to more fully analyze the cumulative climate and health implications of its oil and gas leasing actions. The conservation group is particularly “dialed into” BLM’s environmental role in the prolific Permian Basin oil and gas field that spans New Mexico and western Texas — one of the most intense drilling plays in the nation, Troutman said. But WildEarth Guardians and other groups have condemned the federal agency for what they see as its capitulation — via piecemeal environmental reviews — to the industry’s larger pollution from activities on federal lands throughout the West.
As multiple lawsuits and differing court rulings ensued over the years, the BLM has been whipsawed by changing presidential administrations with vastly differing directives over the issues.
“Meanwhile, more climate pollution, more families in these frontline communities [face health implications], more spills contaminating land and water are occurring every day,” Troutman said. “This is not the time to delay a further assessment of what’s already happening.”
She added: “This whole plan to ‘unleash American energy’ is really just unleashing even more oil and gas pollution on top of it.”
Industry officials contend the leases in question, and their environmental impacts, have been analyzed ad nauseam.
“The court[s], in these cases, are requiring some level of review. The BLM must follow the law,” Petroleum Association of Wyoming President Pete Obermueller told WyoFile via email.
But he stressed, the Biden administration’s approach wasn’t the best route.
“A multi-state [environmental impact statement] is not the only way to undertake environmental analysis,” he wrote
The Interior Department, which oversees the BLM, noted the action to rescind the Biden administration’s promise for a full environmental review — which would have included cumulative climate and health impacts — is in line with President Donald Trump’s January executive order, “Unleashing American Energy.” The order directs the Interior and other federal agencies to, among other things, reduce “regulatory barriers for oil and gas companies and [expedite] domestic energy development.”
Meantime, the BLM is moving forward with quarterly oil and gas lease sales. The agency this month initiated a 30-day “public scoping period” seeking input on 99 oil and gas lease parcels in Wyoming that it may include in a December lease sale. The comment period ends May 9.
For information, maps and instructions for how to comment, go to this BLM webpage.
