Appeal of Court-Ordered Utah Gas Lease Review Dropped by Feds

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management seeks to drop its challenge to a court’s order that it must consider alternatives to oil and gas leasing in the Uinta Basin in Utah proposed by environmental groups, according to a filing in the Tenth Circuit.

Rocky Mountain Wild, the Center for Biological Diversity, and two other groups told the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah that the agency should have studied two alternatives.

The first alternative involves deferring leasing parcels within the viewshed of Dinosaur National Monument, according to the complaint. The second alternative defers leasing parcels that overlap with ...