WASHINGTON, D.C. – A federal court ruled Friday that the Bureau of Land Management’s decision to lease nearly 120,000 acres of federal land for oil and gas development in June 2022 violated the law, according to a news release from Earthjustice.
The court found that BLM moved forward with the lease sale — one of the largest held by the Biden administration on public lands — despite the known risks to drinking water, wildlife and the climate. BLM will now be required to reevaluate the environmental impacts of the sale.
“While BLM is making considerable strides to safeguard critical conservation values, this decision affirms that much work remains,” said Ben Tettlebaum, director and senior staff attorney with The Wilderness Society. “BLM must fully account for the serious impacts of its oil and gas program on groundwater, wildlife, and the climate. Importantly, the court’s ruling shows that the agency must factor into its leasing decisions the enormous costs that greenhouse gas emissions stemming from its oil and gas program impose on public land resources and on the communities that depend on them for clean air and water.”
Before the sale, BLM acknowledged that the greenhouse gas pollution from development of the leases could result in billions of dollars in social and environmental harm — the equivalent of adding hundreds of thousands of cars to the road each year. The agency chose to move forward with the sale anyway, stating that it was not factoring those costs into its decision. The court found that this decision was illegal.
Earthjustice represents The Wilderness Society and Friends of the Earth in this lawsuit.
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