The Bureau of Land Management will no longer prepare a report tallying the environmental impacts of thousands of oil and gas leases across our region. That includes leases in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico and the Dakotas.
Environmentalists and the petroleum industry are divided over the move.
Right now, the climate and health impacts of oil and gas leases are assessed site by site, as mandated by federal law, but Melissa Troutman with the nonprofit WildEarth Guardians said that doesn’t paint a full picture.
“So, that's why we sued to do cumulative analysis,” Troutman said. “We have to know what the true climate, environmental and public health costs are of all of these operations as a whole.”
Four days before leaving the White House, the Biden administration announced plans to prepare an “Environmental Impact Statement” for 3,224 leases in those seven states, which is about 10% of the total leases in those states. This move was in response to a 10-year legal battle with environmental groups. But then the Trump team took over and rolled that back under its Unleashing American Energy policy.
Pete Obermueller, the president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, is supportive of that move, saying the comprehensive review isn’t necessary given the environmental analyses already required.
“How many years and how many pages of analysis is good enough? I think the only honest answer for some people is nothing is good enough,” Obermueller said. “It's more of a fundamental question of should we be allowed to develop energy on public lands or not?”
Troutman said the BLM’s recent announcement will likely result in another round of lawsuits.
A spokesperson for the federal agency said it’s “in the process of determining our options for NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] compliance for these leases, and will announce them when we have that information.”
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
