Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Bureau of Land Management

The federal district court for the District of Nevada denied environmental groups’ request for partial reconsideration of its decision that BLM had satisfied its National Environmental Policy Act obligations in connection with issuance of oil and gas leases for approximately 198,000 acres of land. Although the court found that its previous order was based on an incorrect interpretation of certain BLM regulations and Ninth Circuit case law, the court nonetheless agreed with BLM that an environmental impact statement was not required because BLM had sufficiently analyzed the impacts of oil and gas development in its environmental assessment.

The federal district court for the District of Nevada granted summary judgment to the federal defendants in Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club’s challenge to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) leasing of approximately 198,000 acres of land in the Battle Mountain District in northern Nevada. The court found that BLM had satisfied the “hard look” standard of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by analyzing in “general terms” what could happen—including climate change and greenhouse gas impacts—if lessees drilled for oil and gas. The court also found that BLM adequately considered the impacts of fracking, had not improperly relied on “stale data,” and had properly analyzed mitigation measures to protect mule deer and pronghorn antelope, and that its mitigation measures to protect wetlands were not arbitrary and capricious. In addition, the court upheld BLM’s decisions not to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) and to issue a Determination of NEPA Adequacy instead of an EIS or environmental assessment.

Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Nevada seeking to overturn the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's (BLM’s) oil and gas lease sale for 195,732 acres of federal estate. The plaintiffs alleged that the environmental assessment on which BLM relied contained inadequate analysis of many of the environmental impacts of oil and gas development, including greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. They contended that BLM minimized impacts by determining that few environmental impacts resulted from the lease sale stage and that impacts would be avoided at future stages of review.