Description: Challenge to a June 2022 decision to sell oil and gas leases covering almost 120,000 acres in Wyoming.
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Wilderness Society v. U.S. Department of the Interior
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 03/22/2024 Memorandum Opinion and Order Download Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment granted in part and denied in part. D.C. District Court Said More Explanation Was Required for Wyoming Oil and Gas Lease Sale. In a separate case challenging only BLM’s approval of the Wyoming oil and gas lease sale, the court ruled in part for conservation groups that challenged the NEPA review for the sale. The court noted that it had addressed challenges to the climate analysis for all six lease sales in Dakota Resource Council v. U.S. Department of Interior and that this decision addressed the “fuller suite of challenges to BLM’s environmental analysis and its authorization” of the Wyoming lease, which was “the largest by far” of the six sales (122 parcels totaling 119,654 acres). The court found that BLM had erred in its assessments of impacts on groundwater and wildlife and in its explanation of how its analysis of greenhouse gas emissions influenced its leasing decisions. The court rejected a challenge to BLM’s alternatives analysis. With respect to greenhouse gas emissions, the court concluded that BLM “did not adequately explain how it considered the environmental effects of GHG emissions that, in its own telling, carry a hefty price tag in terms of social costs.” Although the court agreed with BLM that NEPA did not require it to perform a full cost-benefit analysis, the court said NEPA regulations counseled that BLM should “assess the merits and demerits of the proposed action in qualitative terms and provide a reasoned explanation for the basis of its decision.” The court was not convinced by conservation groups’ contention that BLM acted arbitrarily and capriciously be failing to square its authorization of the Wyoming lease sale with Biden administration climate policy directives. 06/29/2022 Complaint Download Complaint filed. Conservation Groups Alleged Failures to Meaningfully Consider Climate Impacts of Oil and Gas Lease Sales. A lawsuit filed by Wilderness Society and Friends of the Earth (FOE) in federal district court in the District of Columbia challenged a June 2022 decision to sell oil and gas leases covering almost 120,000 acres in Wyoming. Wilderness Society and FOE’s claims included that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) violated the National Environmental Policy Act by “fail[ing] to make a reasoned decision about how to address the lease sale’s contribution to climate change.” They alleged that although BLM acknowledged that the development of the oil and gas leases would result in “huge volumes of greenhouse gases” and “billions of dollars in social and environmental costs,” the agency did not explain why it chose to incur such costs, consider the sale’s consistency with U.S. commitments to mitigate climate change, or consider the alternative of a smaller lease sale. The complaint’s allegations also related to potential groundwater impacts and asserted that protection of groundwater sources was particularly important due to pressure climate change would put on water sources.