The U.S. Forest Service has reopened the comment period on plans to offer oil and gas leases in parts of the Ruby Mountains, about 370 miles north of Las Vegas.
The agency will now accept input through April 23 as it studies whether to make 54,000 acres in the sprawling Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest available to oil and gas developers for the first time.
The BLM requested the evaluation of the land in early August, after a prospective developer expressed interest in the area.
Officials have so far received mostly negative comments from a number of groups, including American Indian tribes and hunters.
