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ARTICLE · 01 MAY 2019

District Court Provides Guidance On Climate Change Analysis Under NEPA

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A federal district court has ruled that the Bureau of Land Management ("BLM") failed to adequately consider climate change when approving a set of oil and gas leases on public lands in Wyoming.

United StatesEnvironment
Keith Garner
Keith Garner
Alex Merritt
Alex Merritt
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A federal district court has ruled that the Bureau of Land Management ("BLM") failed to adequately consider climate change when approving a set of oil and gas leases on public lands in Wyoming. The ruling should be of broader interest to developers and energy companies because it offers guidance on how to properly analyze a project's effects on climate change under the National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA"). The law in this area remains unsettled –especially since President Trump rescinded the Obama Administration's formal guidance on NEPA and climate change in 2017. Future developments are likely, and project sponsors should monitor them closely.

At issue in the case are oil and gas leases covering 300,000 acres of public lands in Wyoming. For each lease sale, BLM prepared an environmental assessment to comply with NEPA. The environmental assessments discussed climate change on a "conceptual level," without quantifying and analyzing the greenhouse gas emissions

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