Montana Environmental Information Center v. United States Bureau of Land Management

In a lawsuit brought by environmental groups to challenge authorizations for federal oil and gas lease sales in Montana, the federal district court for the District of Montana approved a stipulated agreement between federal defendants and environmental groups and dismissed the action. In the stipulated agreement, the federal defendants agreed to notify the plaintiffs and hold public comment periods when applications for permits to drill (APDs) were submitted on the leases. The federal defendants also agreed to consider requiring measures to account for and reduce natural gas emissions as conditions of approval of the APDs. The stipulated agreement also noted that the United States Bureau of Land Management was proposing to update its regulations to reduce the waste of natural gas from flaring, venting, and leaks from oil and gas production operations on public and Indian lands. It left open the possibility that the plaintiffs could seek attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act. Four trade groups that had intervened in the lawsuit said they would not object to dismissal of the action, but that they believed the federal defendants would have prevailed on the National Environmental Policy Act claims and that the plaintiffs were not entitled to attorney fees.

Four trade groups—the American Petroleum Institute, Montana Petroleum Association, Montana Chamber of Commerce, and Western Energy Alliance—notified the federal district court for the District of Montana that they opposed an anticipated settlement between environmental groups and the United States Bureau of Land Management and other federal defendants concerning the sale of oil and gas leases in Montana and the Dakotas. The court had permitted the trade groups to intervene in the action on behalf of the defendants. The trade groups said that they had not been allowed to participate in the settlement discussions and that as parties to the action, whose members had bid successfully in the challenged lease sales, they believed that the settlement would substantially infringe on their lease rights. The trade groups also said that the settlement would not be in the public interest because it would restrict BLM’s discretion. On May 26, 2016, the court ordered the federal defendants and environmental groups to file a final settlement by June 17, 2016, and said that the defendant-intervenors would have until June 24 to file a brief opposing any terms of the settlement.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court’s dismissal on standing grounds of environmental groups’ lawsuit challenging federal approvals for oil and gas leasing on federal lands in Montana. The Ninth Circuit’s unpublished decision said that the Montana district court had erred when it failed to consider surface harms caused by the development of the leases and instead focused only on climate change-related effects, which the district court said did not create a concrete and redressable injury. The Ninth Circuit remanded to the district court with instructions to determine which lease sales would harm the areas of land enjoyed by the environmental groups’ members. The Ninth Circuit directed that this determination “should include consideration of any actual injury stemming from surface harms fairly traceable to the challenged action.”