Wyoming v. U.S. Department of Interior

The court found that the lack of lease sales in 2021 was not arbitrary or capricious, as the agency was conducting a review of lease practices following Executive Order 14008, which stated that the Secretary of the Interior shall pause new oil and natural gas leases on public lands and offshore waters, and addressing legal deficiencies in environmental analyses identified in prior litigation. However, the court found that the DOI failed to provide a sufficient explanation for the failure to hold lease sales in the latter half of 2022. The court found that the record provided no explanation for the decision to forgo lease sales, and thus the failure to hold a lease sale in late 2022 was arbitrary and capricious. The court further held that the industry petitioners lacked standing because the petitioners did not allege that their members would have bid or participated in any 2022 lease sales, and thus did not meet the requirement of an "actual or imminent" injury in fact.

The federal district court for the District of Wyoming concluded that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) decisions not to hold oil and gas lease sales for Wyoming parcels in the second and third quarters of 2021 (Q2 and Q3 2021) were not arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, or in violation of law. The court also concluded, however, that the failure to hold a sale in the third quarter of 2022 (Q3 2022) was arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion. In separate cases brought by industry trade groups, the court found that the trade groups did not have standing to challenge the failure to hold lease sales because “the lost possibility of acquiring a federal oil and gas lease” was not a redressable injury and the groups did not specifically allege that any of their members would have participated if the lease sales had occurred. In its consideration of the merits of the State of Wyoming’s challenge regarding decisions not to hold Wyoming lease sales, the court first interpreted the terms “eligible” and “available” in the Mineral Leasing Act’s provision requiring that “[l]ease sales shall be held for each State where eligible lands are available at least quarterly.” Citing Loper Bright, the court noted it was not deferring to BLM’s interpretation, but that BLM’s definition helped inform the court’s conclusion that “‘eligible’ lands are those that are not precluded from leasing by law and ‘available’ lands are those that have met all statutory requirements and reviews necessary to be leased.” For the Q2 and Q3 2021 sales, the court found that recent litigation regarding National Environmental Policy Act compliance—including regarding the sufficiency of consideration of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts in other reviews—“had drawn into question whether the eligible lands in Wyoming were ‘available’ at the time.” The court found that the administrative record supplied a basis for BLM’s decisions. Regarding Q3 2022, however, the court found that the administrative record provided no evidence to explain the decision not to hold a sale. The court directed the parties to submit supplemental briefing on the appropriate remedy.

The State of Wyoming filed a lawsuit asserting that the federal government violated the Mineral Leasing Act and the Administrative Procedure Act when it canceled or decided not to hold federal oil and gas lease sales for the second and third quarters of 2021 and third quarter of 2022. Wyoming also challenged the Biden administration’s “unwritten decision to pause federal oil and gas leasing.” The federal district court for the District of Wyoming, where the suit was filed, in September 2022 <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/wp-content/uploads/case-documents/2022/20220902_docket-021-cv-00013_order.pdf">rejected</a> a challenge to the cancellation of the first quarter 2021 lease sale, finding that the cancellation “was accompanied with a sufficient explanation” that “no land was ‘available’ for leasing at that time” because additional review under the National Environmental Policy Act was required. In the new lawsuit, Wyoming contended that the Secretary of the Interior did not provide adequate justification for canceling the second quarter 2021 lease sale, provided no explanation for deciding not to hold the third quarter 2021 and third quarter 2022 sales, and adopted a new leasing policy without providing an explanation.