Sierra Club v. Zinke

On December 19, 2017, 16 conservation and tribal citizen organizations filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the Northern District of California challenging the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM’s) final rule postponing most compliance dates in BLM’s Waste Prevention Rule for one year. The Waste Prevention Rule, which was published in the Federal Register on November 18, 2016, imposed requirements on oil and gas companies to reduce the venting, flaring, and leaking of natural gas, including the greenhouse gas methane, during production activities on onshore federal and Indian leases. The organizations alleged that postponement of the compliance dates violated the Mineral Leasing Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act.