Yesterday, the Bureau of Land Management announced that it has given final approval to the TransWest Express transmission line, a 732-mile project that will move electricity from a large wind farm in Wyoming to an interconnection point near Las Vegas. Most of the electrons will ultimately provide power to California. 
According to EnergyWire (subscription required), the notice to proceed was issued a mere 18 years after the project was first initiated. … More
Since I noted earlier this week the announcement by ConocoPhillips that its “ambition” is to reach net-zero carbon for its own operations by 2045-2055, it seemed appropriate also to note that BLM has now approved the Willow Master Development Plan, which will authorize ConocoPhillips to produce almost 600 million barrels of oil over 30 years in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. 
I commented on this project a few months ago,… More
Last week, Judge Scott Skavdahl vacated BLM’s 2016 methane Waste Prevention Rule. 
The Judge spends 10 pages documenting the “loopty-loops” of the litigation surrounding the 2016 Rule and the Trump administration’s efforts to rescind the rule. Here, I’m with him. It’s difficult to review the tangled process of judicial review of this rule without being embarrassed for our judicial system.
Judge Skavdahl then spent 47 pages on the merits. … More
Last week, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers vacated BLM’s rescission of the 2016 methane “Waste Prevention Rule.” Although Judge Rogers found many flaws in the rescission rule, I think that two are key.
The first is the Court’s rejection, under Chevron, of BLM’s limitation of the definition of “waste” to economic waste. I think that the Court’s holding is correct,… More
Last week, Chief Judge Brian Morris of the Federal District Court for the District of Montana vacated an “Instruction Memorandum” issued by BLM in 2018 – and also vacated numerous oil and gas leases issued in reliance on the 2018 IM. The 2018 IM changed the way BLM interpreted land management plans issued by BLM in 2015 in order to preserve sage grouse habitat, 
and avoid the necessity for listing the sage grouse as endangered under the ESA.… More
Last week, Federal District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill granted a preliminary injunction to various NGOs, barring the Bureau of Land Management from implementing amendments BLM had made in 2019 to protection plans for the sage grouse promulgated by BLM in 2015. It makes compelling reading. In 29 pages, it pretty much summarizes everything the Trump administration has done in the environmental arena, and how courts have reacted.… More
In 2016, DOI Secretarial Order 3338 imposed a moratorium on new coal leases on federal land 
until BLM prepared a programmatic environmental impact statement intended to address, among other issues, the impact of coal leasing on climate change.
Times do change. In 2018, DOI Secretarial Order 3348 eliminated the moratorium and the requirement to prepare a PEIS. Litigation ensued.
Last week,… More
Yesterday, Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte granted summary judgment to plaintiffs and vacated the Bureau of Land Management’s notice that it was postponing certain compliance dates contained in the Obama BLM rule governing methane emissions on federal lands. If you’re a DOJ lawyer, it’s pretty clear your case is a dog when the Court enters summary judgment against you before you’ve even answered the complaint.
The case is pretty simple and the outcome should not be a surprise. … More
Last week, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed as prudentially unripe appeals of last year’s District Court decision striking down BLM’s 2015 fracking rule. 
The District Court ruled that BLM had no authority to issue the rule. At the time, I thought that the District Court was on shaky ground. So did BLM and various environmental groups. They appealed.
Now,… More
Yesterday, Judge Scott Skavdahl of the District of Wyoming held that the Bureau of Land Management did not have authority to regulate the environmental impacts of fracking. 
I think Judge Skavdahl probably got it right, but I also think it’s a much closer question than the Judge acknowledged and I could imagine either the 10th Circuit or the Supreme Court reaching a different conclusion.
Judge Skavdahl first reviewed the various statutes cited by BLM as providing authority for the rule. … More
Conservatives sometimes talk about lawless, i.e., liberal, judges. Let me tell you a story about Judge Robert Clive Jones, 
who presided over the United States v. Estate of E. Wayne Hage, until the 9th Circuit this week reversed several of his decisions and instructed the Chief Judge to assign the case to a new judge on remand.
Wayne Hage grazed cattle on federal land in Nevada.… More
In a decision that should not have come as a surprise to anyone, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday, in Conservation Northwest v. Sherman, that the Bureau of Land Management and other agencies implementing the Northwest Forest Plan could not amend the NFP without complying with the procedural requirements of the Federal Land Policy Management Act. The rationale of the decision should apply far more broadly than just the FLPMA,… More