Citizens for a Healthy Community v. U.S. Bureau of Land Management

Conservation groups and federal defendants agreed to a settlement that resolved a lawsuit filed in 2020 challenging the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's (BLM’s) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decisions authorizing the Uncompahgre Resource Management Plan (RMP). BLM, which previously committed in another lawsuit to complete Resource Management Plan Amendments for the Uncompahgre RMP to address Gunnison sage-grouse habitat and big game habitat areas, agreed to complete an RMP amendment process that will reconsider eligibility of lands open to oil and gas leasing, among other issues. BLM agreed not to issue new oil and gas leases in the Uncompahgre planning area until the RMP amendment is approved.

Six conservation groups filed an amended petition for review in their lawsuit challenging a resource management plan (RMP) for the Uncompahgre Field Office that expanded lands available to oil and gas leasing in southwestern Colorado. The petitioners—who filed suit in August—added causes of action under the Endangered Species Act related to the RMP’s impacts on the Gunnison sage-grouse as well as a cause of action asserting that the RMP was invalid because William Perry Pendley was unlawfully serving as acting director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management when the RMP was finalized.

Six environmental and conservation groups filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Colorado challenging the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's (BLM’s) approval of a revised Resource Management Plan (RMP) for the Uncompahgre Field Office that expanded lands available to oil and gas leasing. The plaintiffs alleged that BLM failed to take “a hard look at the plan’s greenhouse gas emissions and resulting impacts to the climate and natural resources.” They asserted climate change-based claims under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Federal Land Planning and Management Act (FLPMA), and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Among other contentions, the plaintiffs asserted that “BLM’s failure to define or take action to prevent the unnecessary or undue degradation of lands in the context of recognized climate impacts,” as required by the FLPMA, violated the APA. They also contended that BLM violated NEPA by failing to consider a no leasing alternative; failing to take a hard look at “cumulative greenhouse gas emissions or the severity of resulting climate impacts” and declining to use any tool for quantitatively assessing the RMP’s climate pollution impact; and failing to take a hard look at the 20-year global warming potential of methane emissions.