Living Rivers v. Hoffman

The federal district court for the District of Utah dismissed without prejudice conservation groups’ lawsuit challenging the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) suspension of 82 oil and gas leases issued in 2018. BLM suspended the leases after a federal court in Washington, D.C. <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/wp-content/uploads/case-documents/2019/20190319_docket-116-cv-01724_memorandum-opinion-1.pdf">ruled</a> in 2019 that BLM had failed to adequately assess the potential impacts of greenhouse gas emissions for certain oil and gas leases in Wyoming. The District of Utah held that the lease suspensions merely maintained the status quo and therefore were not major federal actions subject to NEPA; the conservation groups therefore lacked standing. The court also concluded that the groups’ argument that BLM should have canceled the leases instead of suspending them was not relevant to its cause of action alleging that the lease suspensions violated NEPA.