Sierra Club v. Bureau of Land Management

Plaintiffs and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) voluntarily dismissed this case pursuant to a settlement agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, BLM has committed to prohibiting any Peregrine program activities, as well as geophysical or other non-drilling exploratory activities, unless and until additional analyses under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) are conducted and further agency decisions are issued. The agreement encompasses the existing right-of-way grant and requires BLM to notify the environmental groups of any new applications for oil and gas activities on the Peregrine lease.

Three environmental organizations filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Alaska challenging BLM’s approval of Emerald House’s Peregrine oil and gas exploration program in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The plaintiffs asserted that BLM failed to adequately discuss and analyze the programs impacts on climate change. They contended that BLM did not assess greenhouse gas emissions that would result from eventual production and consumption if the exploration program led to such activities and that BLM had evaluated “only a fraction” of direct emissions from exploration operations.