WildEarth Guardians v. Haaland

In three lawsuits brought by conservation groups to challenge oil and gas leases on federal land in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, the federal district court for the District of Columbia granted the conservation groups’ motions for voluntary dismissal with prejudice after the groups and the federal defendants reached agreements to settle the three cases. Under the agreements, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will conduct additional National Environmental Policy Act analysis, consistent with the court’s earlier decisions that found flaws in BLM’s analysis of the leases’ impacts on climate change. In its decision granting voluntary dismissal, the court found that the plaintiffs sought voluntary dismissal in good faith and that industry defendant-intervenors did not establish that voluntary dismissal would result in clear legal prejudice to them (or undue prejudice, if reviewed under the standard for voluntary remand, as the intervenors argued). Having granted voluntary dismissal, the court denied as moot federal defendants’ motions to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, federal defendants’ motions to remand, and intervenors’ motions to dismiss on statute of limitations grounds.

The plaintiffs and the federal defendants filed a stipulated settlement agreement pursuant to which the defendants agreed to conduct additional NEPA analysis of the 28 leasing decisions at issue in this lawsuit.

In three cases challenging oil and gas lease sales in the western United States, the plaintiffs asked the federal district court for the District of Columbia to stay the proceedings for 60 days to facilitate a negotiated final resolution of the cases. They reported that they had reached “an agreement in principle on a framework for a settlement agreement that would result in the stipulated dismissal” of the cases. The federal defendants did not oppose the motion, but certain intervenors opposed the stays on the grounds that challenges to some of the lease sales were untimely and that the court therefore should resolve intervenor American Petroleum Institute's motions to dismiss those claims in the interests of vindicating the purposes served by the Mineral Leasing Act’s 90-day limitations period for review of decisions involving oil and gas leases. The federal defendants previously sought voluntary remand of the cases.

On July 30, 2021, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) asked the federal district court for the District of Columbia for voluntary remand without vacatur of environmental assessments and findings of no significant impact in three cases challenging oil and gas lease sales in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. The cases were filed in 2016, 2020, and 2021. The federal defendants told the court that they had determined that remand was appropriate to allow additional analysis under NEPA in light of the court’s November 2020 decision in the 2016 case that found shortcomings in the analysis of greenhouse gas emission associated with the Wyoming leases at issue in that case. The federal defendants asserted that remand without vacatur was appropriate because there was “at least a serious possibility” that BLM would be able to substantiate its decision on remand, because the court lacked authority to order vacatur without an independent determination that the leasing decisions did not comply with NEPA, and because the plaintiffs and intervenors would have an opportunity to challenge any decisions the agency made on remand. American Petroleum Institute, which intervened as a defendant in all three cases, filed motions to dismiss in the 2020 and 2021 lawsuits, arguing that challenges to some of the leases in the lawsuits were time-barred. In the 2021 case, API also argued that res judicata or the doctrine of laches should bar the plaintiffs from challenging leasing decisions issued prior to the plaintiffs’ filing of their 2020 lawsuit.

The federal district court for the District of Columbia allowed American Petroleum Institute and the State of Wyoming to intervene as defendants in a lawsuit filed earlier in 2021 in which environmental groups challenge BLM’s approval of 1,153 oil and gas leases on public lands in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. The court found that both parties were entitled to intervene as of right.

On January 19, 2021, WildEarth Guardians and Physicians for Social Responsibility filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Columbia challenging 890 oil and gas leases covering more than one million acres across Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. They asserted that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) failed to fully analyze the direct, indirect, and cumulative climate change impacts of the leases. The plaintiffs alleged that although BLM had recognized and sought to remedy deficient NEPA reviews for other oil and gas lease sales after the court’s 2019 decision concerning Wyoming leases in another case, BLM had not done so with respect to the 19 lease sales challenged in this case.