Tag: Bureau of Land Management (BLM)

Report: BLM analysis shows climate price of Alaska drilling

This E&E News article discusses new BLM analysis which shows the climate price of Alaska drilling.

The Trump administration’s support for oil development in Alaska’s North Slope could have dramatic climate impacts, even if top brass doesn’t upend current Obama-era restrictions on fossil fuel development.

The Bureau of Land Management is currently rewriting its integrated activity plan for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), a 23-million-acre reserve that — like its well-known neighbor, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) — is a mecca for birds, caribou and subsistence-hunting resources for isolated Native Alaskan communities.

About half of the reserve is currently available for oil and gas exploration. The other half, including the Teshekpuk Lake area that lies along the Arctic coast, is protected by a 2013 management plan.

BLM is now weighing the impact of opening most of the reserve for development, alongside an analysis of protecting more acreage, according to its draft of potential changes to the NPR-A released in November. The draft document bluntly describes a warming Arctic, vulnerable to ongoing changes as a result of burning fossil fuels. And it quantifies “downstream” emissions.

 

Federal Agency’s Move to Colorado Threatens Public Lands, Science and the Climate

This The Revelator article discusses how moving the Bureau of Land Management to Grand Junction, Colorado, threatens public lands, science and the climate. The relocation reflects a widespread pattern of destabilization under President Trump.

When it comes to public lands, the National Park Service has better name recognition among Americans, but it’s the Bureau of Land Management, along with the USDA’s Forest Service, that has more influence. The BLM has jurisdiction over 246 million acres — more than the Forest Service and three times that of the National Park Service — and makes important decisions about oil and gas leasing, mining, grazing, recreation, and other uses of those lands.

Now it seems the BLM’s vast holdings may be in peril due to continued attacks on the agency by the Trump administration, including its decision to relocate the agency’s headquarters to Grand Junction, Colorado, and scatter other employees around the country.

All but about 60 of the agency’s hundreds of Washington, D.C. staff will be sent “out West,” including the relocation of congressional affairs staff to Reno, Nevada, and the distribution of the environmental staff to offices in seven states. In total more than 200  positions will be relocated. High-level officials in the Department of the Interior, which oversees the BLM, justified the move by saying it will bring the staff closer to the lands that they manage, most of which are in the West.

U.S. Suspends More Oil and Gas Leases Over What Could Be a Widespread Problem

This Inside Climate News article discusses U.S. Suspends More Oil and Gas Leases Over What Could Be a Widespread Problem. Fossil Fuel leases totaling hundreds of thousands of acres have been suspended as courts rule against the BLM for ignoring climate impact.

The Trump administration’s relentless push to expand fossil fuel production on federal lands is hitting a new snag: its own refusal to consider the climate impacts of development.

The federal Bureau of Land Management’s Utah office in September voluntarily suspended 130 oil and gas leases after advocacy groups sued, arguing that BLM hadn’t adequately assessed the greenhouse gas emissions associated with drilling and extraction on those leases as required by law.

The move was unusual because BLM suspended the leases on its own, without waiting for a court to rule.

Some environmental advocates say it could indicate a larger problem for the bureau.

The League of Anti-Environmental Extremists

This New Republic article discusses what is being called “The League of Anti-Environmental Extremists”. A new poll suggests the Trump administration—packed to the brim with industry lapdogs and climate skeptics—is significantly more anti-environment than the American public is.

The number of anti-climate appointees running federal public lands and environmental policy has become, like a great many alarming situations, unnervingly pedestrian three years into the Trump presidency. Particularly after the brazen grift attempts so lazily hidden by Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke, few headlines are likely to surprise a numbed public. The past week, however, has brought a particularly interesting juxtaposition of news: fresh evidence of the anti-environmental extremism of William Perry Pendley, the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) current acting director, and new opinion polling on public land and drilling. Taken together, they’re an over-due chance to recognize this parade of unfit and corrupt presidential appointees for what they are—not just tools of the extraction industry, but the voice of policies significantly more extreme than those backed by the average American.

Trump opening California public land to fracking, gas leases. Is it ‘reckless’?

This article discusses Trump’s opening California public land to fracking, gas leases. Is it ‘reckless’?

The Trump administration has finalized its plans to open hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land in Central California to oil and gas leasing, paving the way for more fracking to soon begin in the state.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approved the oil and gas exploration plan “based on the administration’s goal of strengthening energy independence and the BLM support of an all-of-the-above energy plan that includes oil and gas underlying America’s public lands,” it said in its record of decision released Friday.

Trump administration pushes for Arctic drilling by arguing ‘there is not a climate crisis’

This The Hill article discusses how Trump’s administration is pushing for Arctic drilling by arguing ‘there is not a climate crisis’.

The Trump administration, in its push for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, is arguing the project should go forward because “there is not a climate crisis.”

The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) environmental impact statement, released this month, is the last step before drilling leases can be sold on a piece of wilderness in Alaska that House Democrats have sought to protect.

The BLM document contains language, first reported by E&E News on Monday, that spells out the administration’s response to opponents who argue drilling in the Arctic will hasten climate change.

“The BLM does not agree that the proposed development is inconsistent with maintaining a livable planet (i.e., there is not a climate crisis),” the agency wrote in its review.

Study: Trees and Climate change

This article discusses whether we are overestimating how much trees will help fight Climate Change? By using imaging scans to measure internal decay, researchers find forests may store far less carbon than we think. His research, published in Environmental Research Letters late last year and funded by the National Science Foundation, focused on a technique to see inside trees — a kind of scan known as tomography (the “T” in CAT scan.) This particular tomography was developed for use by arborists to detect decay in urban and suburban trees, mainly for safety purposes. Marra, however, may be the first to deploy it for measuring carbon content and loss associated with internal decay. Where there is decay there is less carbon, he explains, and where there is a cavity, there is no carbon at all.

This National Geographic article discusses why forests on Utah’s public lands may soon be torn out. The U.S. is moving forward with a plan to create new cattle pasture and prevent fires despite what scientists say is meager environmental review.

DeSmog Blog, Week of June 21, 2019

This week’s set of articles discuss:

  1. Congressional Dems Investigating Why Big Oil Is ‘Only Winner’ in Clean Car Standard Rollbacks
  2. A Democratic Think Tank, the Progressive Policy Institute, Is Promoting Pushback Against Climate Lawsuits
  3. Another Deceptive Letter Bashing the Electric Car Tax Credit Circulating Congress, Courtesy of FreedomWorks
  4. After Losing a Similar Case, BLM Sued Again Over Climate Impacts of Oil and Gas Leases
  5. Trump’s EPA Signs ‘Deadly’ Clean Power Plan Replacement
  6. Trudeau Approval of Tar Sands Pipeline, Say Critics, Would Make ‘Absolute Mockery’ of Climate Emergency Declaration Approved Less Than 24 Hours Ago
  7. The Defense Department Is Worried About Climate Change — and Also a Huge Carbon Emitter
  8. From the Climate Disinformation Database: National Association of Manufacturers

Federal judge demands Trump administration reveal how its drilling plans will fuel climate change

This Washington Post article discusses Federal judge demands Trump administration reveal how its drilling plans will fuel climate change. The ruling temporarily blocks drilling on 300,000 acres of leases in Wyoming.

A federal judge ruled late Tuesday that the Interior Department violated federal law by failing to take into account the climate impact of its oil and gas leasing in the West.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras of Washington could force the Trump administration to account for the full climate impact of its energy-dominance agenda, and it could signal trouble for the president’s plan to boost fossil fuel production across the country. Contreras concluded that the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management “did not sufficiently consider climate change” when making decisions to auction off federal land in Wyoming to oil and gas drilling under President Barack Obama in 2015 and 2016. The judge temporarily blocked drilling on about 300,000 acres of land in the state.

FERC orders work to stop on Mountain Valley Pipeline

This article discusses a decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) halting the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP).

A federal agency ordered a stop Friday to construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which has run into repeated problems with erosion since it began its path through the Roanoke and New River valleys.

In a letter to pipeline officials, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission cited an appeals court decision last week that reversed earlier-granted approvals for pipeline work in the Jefferson National Forest.

With construction of that 3.6-mile segment of the natural gas pipeline now on hold, FERC determined that work on the rest of the 303-mile project should not proceed.

“MVP is hereby notified that construction activity along all portions of the Project and in all work areas must cease immediately, with the exception of any measures deemed necessary…to ensure the stabilization of the right of way and work areas,” the letter stated.

The stop-work order appeared to be temporary, with FERC saying that the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management will likely be able to re-issue approvals that were struck down July 27 by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.