Rocky Mountain Wild v. Bernhardt

The federal district court for the District of Colorado found that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) 2018 lease sales in and around the Uinta Basin in northwestern Colorado did not comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. The court remanded to BLM without vacating the leases. The court found that BLM should have considered air modeling that became available before it made the 2018 decision and that BLM failed to consider whether the discovery of wilderness character in certain lands warranted a change in management priorities. The court did not address the complaint’s climate change-related allegations.

Four conservation groups filed a lawsuit in federal court in Colorado challenging 121 oil and gas leases covering 117,720.59 acres in and around the Uinta Basin in northwestern Colorado and northeastern Utah. The plaintiffs asserted that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) violated the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. The complaint alleged that additional oil and gas development would further impair air quality and adversely affect Dinosaur National Monument and also asserted that greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas development threatened public health and the environment. With respect to climate change, the complaint alleged a failure by BLM to take a hard look at cumulative climate impacts “in conjunction with other past, present, and future lease sales in the Uinta Basin.”