Context is Crucial in Examining BLM’s Proposed Rule for Fracking On Federal Land
On Friday, I posted about a decision invalidating BLM Resource Manage Plans for failure to comply with NEPA. My caption was “NEPA Is Still Going to Pose an Obstacle to Leasing Public Lands for Fossil Fuel Extraction.”...more
California AG Rob Bonta, New Mexico AG Hector Balderas, New York AG Letitia James, and Washington AG Bob Ferguson sent a letter to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) urging it to consider the full social and...more
Expenses and Delays Continue for Mountain Valley Pipeline, Where Work has Halted Again - "The pipeline’s developers announced that construction now isn’t expected to concluded until late next year at a cost of $5.3 to $5.5...more
On June 19, 2018, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected a challenge by environmental groups and held that the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) has no legal obligation to update its...more
WildEarth Guardians v. United States Bureau of Land Management, et al., 870 F.3d 1222 (10th Cir. 2017). WildEarth Guardians and the Sierra Club (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) brought a claim under the Administrative Procedure...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (“Ninth Circuit”) in a February 27th opinion addressed a challenge by the Northern Plaints Resource Council, Inc. (“NPRCI”) to an Environmental Assessment (“EA”)...more
Let’s take a look at what President Trump has done for the oil industry in his first year (This is not about decorum, dossiers, tweets, or Oprah’s inauguration.) As in the past I refer to sources whose opinions and insights...more
Last week, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded a District Court decision approving a decision by the Bureau of Land Management to approve new leases on mines that account for 20% of U.S. coal production. ...more
President Donald Trump’s recently signed Executive Order on Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth (the Order) includes significant revisions to the regulatory landscape both (1) directly in the case of oil and...more
An executive order, secretarial order, and lawsuit challenging said secretarial order, all in the span of less than 36 hours and all concerning federal coal leasing. The Trump administration on Wednesday reversed a 2016...more
On January 11, 2017, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) within the Department of the Interior released a scoping report analyzing a wide range of proposed reforms to the federal coal leasing program, administered by the BLM....more
The D.C. Circuit has decided against ruling on the substance of whether the Abandoned Mine Land reclamation fee and the regulatory methods the Office of Surface Mining uses to collect it on exported coal create an...more
Even as U.S. coal exports surge to record highs, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is being taken to task for (among other items) failing to take account of the burgeoning export market when calculating the fair market...more