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

To resolve environmental groups’ lawsuit challenging a 2019 resource management plan that made 725,500 acres in BLM’s Central Coast Field Office planning area available for oil and gas leasing, the federal defendants agreed to prepare a supplemental EIS that would consider six alternatives analyzed in the 2019 EIS. The defendants also agreed that BLM would solicit and consider additional alternatives, coordinate with local governments and cooperate with them to the maximum extent consistent with federal law, and defer any oil or gas lease sales pending the issuance of a new decision document. Allegations in the complaint included that BLM failed to adequately analyze the plan’s impacts on greenhouse gas emissions and climate.

Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the Northern District of California challenging the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's (BLM’s) approval of a resource management plan amendment for a planning area that included California’s Bay Area and Central coast. The complaint alleged that the plan amendment would make 725,500 acres available for oil and gas leasing and that BLM’s environmental review failed to adequately analyze the impacts of oil and gas development, including effects on greenhouse gas emissions and the climate.