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The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced that it would resume onshore lease sales in 2022 after a federal judge ended the Biden administration’s pause on new oil and gas leasing this summer. Since then, the BLM initiated a public scoping period of the proposed leases that lasted from September 1 to October 1. The majority of proposed leases are located in Wyoming, and all of the Wyoming parcels were requested for leasing by oil and gas companies.
Courtney Whiteman, a public affairs specialist for the agency’s Wyoming state office says that while the agency has considerable discretion over its lease offerings, it still has to justify its reasoning. “The decision needs to be backed up by science, by facts, and be appropriately explained. We can’t make a decision to offer a parcel, or to not offer a parcel, without a solid reasoning for why we’re doing that,” said Whiteman.
Even so, on the final day of the scoping period, 13 organizations submitted a joint public comment calling for all of the proposed leases to be deferred pending further environmental review, including a comprehensive analysis of the climate impacts of federal oil and gas leasing. Michael Saul, senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the 13 groups challenging the current review process, said, “It’s our feeling that if and when such an adequate review occurs, the inevitable conclusion is that continuing business as usual, and leasing more public land for oil and gas development, is not justifiable. None of these leases can be on sound legal footing unless and until there’s a systematic and comprehensive evaluation of the emissions consequences of the entire program.”
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For society as a whole to support the use of fossil fuels, it just doesn’t make sense, especially when we have alternatives now.”
