Judge Holds that BLM Must Set Aside 13 NM Oil and Gas Leases
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge M. Christina Armijo found that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) must set aside 13 oil and gas leases covering approximately 20,000 acres of the Santa Fe National Forest. Specifically, Judge Armijo found that BLM’s greenhouse gas analysis was insufficient, and set aside the BLM’s finding of no significant impact for the leases.
BLM issued the 13 oil and gas leases in 2014, over protest from environmental groups. The environmental groups sued over BLM’s decision, claiming that BLM did not adequately review the leases and that BLM did not sufficiently its decision to not issue and environmental impact statement.
BLM argued that its analysis of the leases was hampered by the difficulty to project local climate change impacts. Judge Armijo rejected this argument, stating that science had advanced in the past years.
In her order, Judge Armijo concluded that “BLM’s failure to estimate the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, which will result from consumption of the oil and gas produced as a result of development of wells on the leased areas, was arbitrary.” However, Judge Armijo did find that BLM had adequately analyzed other project impacts, such as those, to air, water quality, and groundwater.