|
The Bureau of Land Management has suspended oil and gas leases covering hundreds of thousands of acres after a string of legal defeats. Last week the agency suspended 130 leases in Utah after failing to consider the climate impacts of oil and gas development. Previously, the BLM had pulled back leases in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah after a judge ruled the agency had not adequately considered climate impacts.
Jayni Hein, natural resources director at the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law, notes, "It is potentially a BLM-wide issue. It could have the effect of suspending even more leases across the West, and not just for oil and gas, for coal as well."
The BLM has also suffered legal defeats after weakening landmark sage-grouse conservation plans to allow increased oil and gas development on public lands. Last week the agency canceled an upcoming oil and gas lease sale in Colorado after a federal judge suspended the administration's weakened sage-grouse plans.
|
Bernhardt’s fingerprints aren’t detectable on the Westlands contract. But the miasma of corruption within the Interior Department has become so thick that almost every major decision today, even those that look innocent on the surface, makes one wrinkle one’s nose. This is why a failure to stringently police public ethics can be so corrosive — nothing escapes the stench.”
