Biden’s First Public Land Oil and Gas Lease Sales Survive Suit

The Biden administration’s first oil and gas lease sales on federal lands were upheld Friday by a federal judge who said he found no legal fault with the 2022 auctions.

Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the US District Court for the District of Columbia allowed the lease sales to stand, denying the groups’ motion for summary judgment and granting the Interior Department’s cross-motion for summary judgment in the agency’s favor.

The Bureau of Land Management in June 2022 auctioned 173 parcels for oil and gas drilling in seven states after a 2021 court order required the administration to lift its moratorium on leasing federal lands for oil and gas. President Joe Biden in 2021 ordered a “pause” on leasing to allow the Interior Department to account for how oil and gas drilling contributes to climate change.

Environmental groups, including the Dakota Resource Council, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club, and seven others, challenged the sales in US District Court for the District of Columbia, claiming they violated the National Environmental Policy Act for failing to fully account for the sales’ greenhouse gas emissions.

The sales were held for federal drilling rights in Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. The Biden administration has since held numerous oil and gas lease sales on federal lands nationwide.

“The Court appreciates the Conservation Groups’ concerns and the potentially existential threat that continued GHG emissions pose, yet it finds no legal error in the Bureau’s environmental analysis or its decision to approve the challenged lease sales,” Cooper wrote in his ruling.

He said that the BLM “reasonably” exhausted its tools to analyze the lease sales’ environmental consequences, including estimating their greenhouse gas emissions and considering the social cost of carbon resulting from the sales. The bureau concluded the sales would result in no significant environmental impact.

“While many observers may find that result unsatisfying, it was all that was required to comply with NEPA in this ever-evolving scientific and regulatory landscape,” Cooper ruled.

In a separate case, Wilderness Society v. Haaland, Cooper agreed with the Wilderness Society and Friends of the Earth that the BLM made mistakes in assessing the impacts of the Wyoming sale’s impacts to groundwater and wildlife. Cooper ordered another round of briefings in the litigation before he rules on a remedy.

The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg Law is operated by entities controlled by Michael Bloomberg.

The cases are Dakota Resource Council v. Interior, D.D.C., No. 1:22-cv-01853, 3/22/24 and Wilderness Society v. Haaland, D.D.C., No. 1:22-cv-01871, 3/22/24.