Oil and Gas Leases in Large, Undeveloped Montana Areas Challenged

The Bureau of Land Management should have considered how fracking affects clean water and climate when it issued oil and gas leases on 150,000 acres in Montana, environmental groups said.

The environmental analyses for the lease sales cut corners and failed to quantify the direct effects of greenhouse gases that will result from drilling and hydraulic fracturing in pristine areas, Rebecca Fischer, a climate advocate for WildEarth Guardians in Denver, one of the environmental groups challenging the leases, told Bloomberg Environment May 15.

“We’re seeing BLM rushing its environmental analyses, and they’re making mistakes,” she said.