The federal district court in the District of Columbia vacated the 2020 environmental impact statement (EIS) and record of decision (ROD) for the Converse County Oil and Gas Project in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, finding that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) failed to conduct an adequate analysis of reasonable alternatives. In particular, the court found that BLM violated its obligation under NEPA to “rigorously evaluate a reasonable range of alternatives” by eliminating a greenhouse gas reduction alternative and an alternative that reduced the pace of oil and gas development. The court found that vacatur was warranted because BLM’s errors “were the type that prompts ‘substantial doubt’ that the agency chose correctly” and because the federal defendants and the intervenors failed to show that vacatur of the EIS and ROD would be so disruptive as to justify departing from the normal remedy of vacatur. The court also considered the environmental harm from keeping the EIS in place, noting that the project was “already emitting and will continue to emit significant levels of greenhouse gases that will contribute to climate change and impart other significant environmental harm, impacting human health, sensitive natural resources, landscapes, and wildlife.” The court denied the plaintiffs’ motion to file a second amended complaint, finding that the new claims related to 2025 environmental assessments, categorical exclusions, and applications for permits to drill that were “superficially similar” to the 2020 actions challenged in this case but rested on separate procedures and documents and constituted new, final agency actions. The court also found that allowing the plaintiffs to supplement the complaint would prejudice the defendants and intervenors.

Challenge to the Converse County Oil and Gas Project in Wyoming's Powder River Basin.

Powder River Basin Resource Council v. U.S. Department of the Interior

<p>This entry was provided by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Please see the terms of use for citation and licensing of third party data.</p>

D.C. Federal Court Vacated EIS for Wyoming Oil and Gas Project for Failure to Consider Reasonable Alternatives

Filed

The Climate Litigation Database

Find climate change litigation data and indicators for {text}.

{text} litigation

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law provides Climate Litigation Database, a comprehensive database of US and Global climate change caselaw

Quickly and easily search through the complete text of thousands of climate change law and policy documents from every country.

Search the Climate Litigation Database

An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

Risk is the potential for adverse consequences resulting from the dynamic interplay between (climate-related) hazards, exposure, and vulnerability of affected human or ecological systems.

Groups  of people who are adversely affected by climate change or the response to it

A set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.

Justice is the ethical and political framework that addresses fairness, including issues of responsibility, rights, and structural inequity.

Renewable energy means all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner.

Fossil fuel is a generic term for non-renewable energy sources such as coal, fossil gas, and oil (including crude oil, and petroleum products), that can be used for electricity and heat generation. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons formed from pressurised and heated organic material buried over millions of years.

Molecules in the atmosphere that play a key role in the greenhouse effect by trapping heat radiating from Earth’s surface.

Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate change and its effects, in order to moderate harm, increase resilience or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate change and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate change and its effects.

The management and allocation of funds, assets and investments to meet various objectives

Codes and standards are regulatory instruments that specify minimum standards to protect health and safety. This ranges from performance standards, which prescribe outcomes while allowing flexibility to achieve compliance, to the more prescriptive approach of technology-specific standards.

A ban is a legal action that prevents the sale or supply of a product or service, or that recalls a product from the market. Examples are bans on SF6, greenwashing, fossil fuel advertisement or single-use plastics.

Actions or measures to adapt freshwater systems to climate change.

Actions or measures to adapt freshwater, coastal and marine systems to climate change.

A long-lived, colourless gas, chiefly emitted from fossil fuel combustion, deforestation and cement production.

A potent, short-lived greehouse gas, largely released from livestock, fossil fuel extraction and waste management.

Actions to reduce emissions in energy generation and supply.

Air pollution involves harmful contaminants in the air, affecting both indoor and outdoor environments. It can lead to health issues like respiratory diseases and heart problems, and climate impacts such as global warming. Pollutants can damage plants, trees, habitats, and water bodies like rivers and lakes.

Oil is a combustible liquid fossil fuel composed mainly of hydrocarbons, occurring as crude oil and refined into petroleum products such as petrol, diesel and kerosene.

Fossil gas, commonly known as natural gas, is a fossil fuel consisting chiefly of methane with smaller amounts of other hydrocarbons and trace gases, found in underground deposits.

Coal is a combustible sedimentary rock formed from carbonised plant matter, rich in carbon and hydrocarbons, and occurring in several main types including hard coal and brown coal.

People with different national or cultural traditions from the dominant population

Social and cultural groups that share collective ancestral ties to the lands and natural resources where they live, occupy or from which they have been displaced

Activities of industries that extract natural resources, such as mining, oil, and gas, for commercial use.

This sector involves activities to move goods and people, alongside the storage of products.

Activities of government agencies and institutions that provide public services, enforce laws and manage public resources.

This sector involves the distribution, treatment, and conservation of water resources.

D.C. Federal Court Vacated EIS for Wyoming Oil and Gas Project for Failure to Consider Reasonable Alternatives

Policy instrument

Risk

Impacted group

Fossil fuel

Greenhouse gas

Economic sector

Adaptation/resilience