Description: Challenge to 130 oil and gas lease sales on public land in Utah for failure to consider indirect and cumulative greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts.
-
Living Rivers v. Hoffman
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 03/19/2020 Notice Download Notice of voluntary dismissal filed. In light of the court's dismissal of a similar case (Friends of Cedar Mesa v. U.S. Department of the Interior) as moot, the plaintiffs filed a notice of voluntary dismissal. 09/12/2019 Complaint Download Complaint filed. Conservation Groups Challenged Environmental Review for 130 Oil and Gas Lease Sales in Utah. Three conservation groups challenged 130 oil and gas lease sales covering 175,357 acres of public lands in Utah for failing to consider indirect and cumulative greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts. The complaint asserted that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews for the lease sales, which were conducted between 2014 and 2018, considered no indirect greenhouse gas emissions other than carbon dioxide emissions from combustion and failed to analyze downstream emissions for non-carbon dioxide emissions and emissions that occurred after drilling but prior to combustion. The complaint also alleged that the NEPA reviews did not quantify cumulative emissions of other past, present, or reasonably foreseeable oil and gas lease sales but instead provided “only broad and generic statements regarding the nature of the climate crisis.”