Powder River Basin Resource Council v. U.S. Department of the Interior

The federal district court in the District of Columbia vacated the 2020 environmental impact statement (EIS) and record of decision (ROD) for the Converse County Oil and Gas Project in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, finding that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) failed to conduct an adequate analysis of reasonable alternatives. In particular, the court found that BLM violated its obligation under NEPA to “rigorously evaluate a reasonable range of alternatives” by eliminating a greenhouse gas reduction alternative and an alternative that reduced the pace of oil and gas development. The court found that vacatur was warranted because BLM’s errors “were the type that prompts ‘substantial doubt’ that the agency chose correctly” and because the federal defendants and the intervenors failed to show that vacatur of the EIS and ROD would be so disruptive as to justify departing from the normal remedy of vacatur. The court also considered the environmental harm from keeping the EIS in place, noting that the project was “already emitting and will continue to emit significant levels of greenhouse gases that will contribute to climate change and impart other significant environmental harm, impacting human health, sensitive natural resources, landscapes, and wildlife.” The court denied the plaintiffs’ motion to file a second amended complaint, finding that the new claims related to 2025 environmental assessments, categorical exclusions, and applications for permits to drill that were “superficially similar” to the 2020 actions challenged in this case but rested on separate procedures and documents and constituted new, final agency actions. The court also found that allowing the plaintiffs to supplement the complaint would prejudice the defendants and intervenors.

Two environmental groups filed a motion in the federal district court for the District of Columbia for leave to file a second amended and supplemental complaint challenging recent U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) decisions reaffirming a 2020 final EIS for the Converse County Oil and Gas Project in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin and authorizing new Applications for Permits to Drill (APDs) oil and gas wells. The plaintiffs alleged that the new APD decisions were “closely related factually, legally, and procedurally” to challenges already before the court, including because the NEPA analysis for the new decisions relied on supplemental groundwater analysis conducted by BLM in response to the court’s 2024 decision finding that earlier analysis was deficient. The plaintiffs asserted that BLM violated NEPA, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the Mineral Leasing Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. The plaintiffs’ NEPA allegations included that the final EIS did not adequately analyze the project’s cumulative impacts with other oil and gas development or greenhouse gas emissions of other reasonably foreseeable future projects and also that the analysis failed to consider reasonable alternatives that would reduce key impacts such as greenhouse gas and other air pollutant emissions. In addition, the plaintiffs alleged that the defendants erroneously claimed that BLM did not have legal authority to require mitigation of air pollution emissions.

In a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) approval of the Converse County Oil and Gas Project, the federal district court for the District of Columbia ruled that BLM’s consideration of groundwater impacts in the environmental impact statement for the project was inadequate. The project covers approximately 52,667 acres of BLM-administered surface and federal mineral estate in Wyoming and would result in the drilling of approximately 5,000 wells over 10 years. The court’s decision did not address the plaintiffs’ arguments regarding deficiencies in the analysis of impacts on cumulative greenhouse gas emissions and the failure to consider all reasonable alternatives, including a greenhouse gas reduction alternative. The court ordered additional briefing on remedy and enjoined approvals of applications for permits to drill until a ruling on remedy.