Articles include: Understanding the Fossil Fuel Industry’s Legacy of White Supremacy; Feds Move Forward with New Mexico Drilling Plan Despite Community Outcry; British Airways Nearly as Polluting as All Vans on UK Roads Combined, Data Shows; UK Court Urged to Respect 1.5C Climate Limit; Climate Disinformation Database: FTI Consulting
Tag: Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
Oil drilling on sensitive New Mexico public lands puts drinking water, rare caves at risk
National Geographic: Oil drilling on sensitive New Mexico public lands puts drinking water, rare caves at risk. A National Geographic investigation has found that Permian Basin energy exploration could taint residential aquifers with pollutants—as well as Carlsbad Caverns and other cave systems.
At 4.3 miles long, Parks Ranch Cave in southeastern New Mexico is the second longest gypsum cave in the Western Hemisphere. The cave and its multiple branches are among 550 that crisscross a fragile, sinkhole-prone geologic region renowned for Carlsbad Caverns.
Standing in the inky depths of Parks Ranch, I cannot see my hands. The air is a comfortable 52 degrees Fahrenheit, 40 degrees cooler than the Chihuahuan Desert 30 feet above. The quiet is so complete, I want to bottle it and take it home with me to enjoy later.
Trump’s Fire Sale of Public Lands for Oil and Gas Drillers
New Republic discusses Trump’s Fire Sale of Public Lands for Oil and Gas Drillers. The Bureau of Land Management is rushing to auction off sites ahead of a potential Biden presidency.
On Tuesday, the Bureau of Land Management auctioned off oil and gas leases to 11 parcels of land totaling around 15,000 acres in Nevada. It’s the latest event in a troubling trend in the Trump administration: Much as the Environmental Protection Agency has been in a mad dash to peel back environmental regulations in the lead-up to November’s election, the Department of the Interior now seems to be embarking on a fire sale of public lands to oil and gas drillers in advance of a potential Democratic administration.
Trump administration easing more Obama-era oil and gas rules
ABC News discusses how the Trump administration is easing more Obama-era oil and gas rules. The Trump administration is seeking to ease more rules for oil and gas drilling that were adopted under the Obama administration.
The Trump administration is seeking to ease more rules for oil and gas drilling that were adopted under the Obama administration, with the latest changes projected to save energy companies more than $130 million over the next decade.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management proposal would streamline requirements for measuring and reporting oil and gas produced from federal lands.
The administration’s critics said it marks yet another instance of Trump backtracking on rules that were meant to ensure companies drill responsibly and that the public gets fairly paid for energy extracted from public lands.
Court strikes down Trump administration’s methane rollback
The Hill discusses how the Court strikes down Trump administration’s methane rollback.
A federal court late Wednesday struck down a Trump administration rule that weakened restrictions on methane gas releases from drilling on public land, restoring an Obama-era rule.
In 2018, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rolled back parts of the prior rule that limited the release of the greenhouse gas. The change was expected to allow for more methane leaks in a process called flaring and add to air pollution.
On Wednesday, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers determined that the rulemaking process used by the BLM was “wholly inadequate.”
Trump administration wants to open up 82 percent of Alaska reserve for drilling
The Hill discusses how the Trump administration wants to open up 82 percent of Alaska reserve for drilling.
The Trump administration wants to open up 82 percent of an Alaska reserve for oil and gas leasing, it announced on Thursday.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) unveiled its plan for oil and gas leasing at the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
The plan would allow for 18.7 million acres of the approximately 23 million acre area to be leased to oil and gas companies.
‘Their greed is gonna kill us’: Indian Country fights against more fracking
The Guardian discusses why Indian Country fights against more fracking. Expansion of drilling in New Mexico would threaten sacred artefacts and bring public health risks to area still reeling from Covid-19.
Sage had a theory for what was happening: underground vibrations from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, forced the snakes from their dens and on to the surface.
Over the years, he’s noticed other changes. Vegetation died off and the climate became drier. People living in homes with dirt floors told him they had felt vibrations from the ground late at night, from 2 to 4am.
The Navajo and Puebloan lands of north-western New Mexico where Counselor is located are no stranger to drilling. The first oil well in the area was reportedly drilled in 1911 with natural gas following soon after.
Today, the US Bureau of Land Management is considering a plan, known as the Mancos-Gallup Amendment, which could lease land in the region for some 3,000 new wells – many of which would be for fracking oil and gas. The plan would expand drilling into some of northern New Mexico’s last available public lands, threatening the desecration of sacred Native artefacts near Chaco Canyon while bringing in a swath of new public health risks to a place that’s already reeling from one of the worst Covid-19 outbreaks in the world.
Judge Vacates Oil and Gas Leases on 145,000 Acres in Montana
The New York Times discusses how a judge vacated O&G leases on 145,000 acres in Montana. A federal judge, rapping the Trump administration for its weak environmental assessments, has vacated hundreds of oil and gas leases across a large swath of Montana.
A federal judge on Friday vacated 287 oil and gas leases on almost 150,000 acres of land in Montana, ruling that the Trump administration had improperly issued the leases to energy companies in 2017 and 2018.
The judge, Brian Morris of the United States District Court for the District of Montana, said the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management failed to adequately take into account the environmental impacts of the drilling. In particular, Judge Morris found that the officials had not accounted for the drilling’s impact on regional water supplies and the global impact that the increased drilling would have on climate change.
The decision is at least the third such legal loss that criticized the Trump administration for failing to consider the cumulative impacts of expanding fossil fuel production on the warming of the planet.
It comes as the Trump administration is seeking to eliminate the legal requirements that the government take such impacts into account at all.
2 articles – Trump’s pushing the oil industry
Inside Climate News discusses how, in Alaska’s North, Covid-19 hasn’t stopped the Trump Administration’s oil drilling efforts. The president’s plans for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge may fall flat. But a massive ConocoPhillips project is moving full speed ahead. Along the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—the long-fought over stretch of wilderness that President Donald Trump has been working hard to open to drilling—a successful lease sale is looking less and less likely before the end of the year. But west of the refuge, in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), the Interior Department is moving ahead with ConocoPhillips’ Willow project. The project is a massive development expected to produce approximately 590 million barrels of oil over its 30-year life, and it could include a central processing facility, up to 250 wells, an airstrip, pipelines and a gravel mine.
The Hill discusses Trump’s OPEC gambit exposes folly of Arctic drilling. Upended oil markets have turned America’s energy policy on its head. Until now, every president since Richard Nixon has fought OPEC’s manipulation of oil prices through their supply controls. After OPEC abandoned tight supply constraints in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan heralded the plunge in oil prices as “a triumph not of government, but of the free market; and not of political leaders, but of freedom itself.” As Trump now pleads with OPEC to curb global oil production, he should be pausing his administration’s rush to lease off America’s public lands and waters to oil companies. Instead, the rush to lease new lands is picking up speed, even as oil companies have unleashed their lobbyists to seek taxpayer bailouts, including a massive handout in the form of suspending payments for oil and gas royalties.