May 19, 2022 |
The Petroleum Association of Wyoming (PAW) submitted a formal protest of the Wyoming BLM Q2 Oil & Gas Lease Final Environmental Analysis (EA).
Petroleum officials say the final EA slashes more than 76% of the acreage originally nominated for leases without sufficient explanation – despite being deemed available for leasing by the BLM’s own Resource Management Plans (RMP).
PAW President Pete Obermueller said, “The BLM’s EA is another step in the Biden Administration’s publicly stated goal of eliminating public lands production.”
Initially 459 parcels encompassing nearly 562,000 acres were available for leasing and had gone through environmental reviews. The final EA for the June lease sale only includes 129 parcels encompassing 131,000 acres.
PAW also takes issue with the BLM’s lack of inclusion of social benefits of domestically-produced oil and natural gas.
The letter, dated May 18th, asks that the lands that were deleted from the Q2 sale be included in the Q3 sale, which has not been finalized yet.
