Groups protest 64 of 76 leases at Wyo. BLM auction

Environmental groups are protesting all but a dozen of the 76 latest oil and gas leases that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management plans to auction off in Wyoming. The protests won't hold up Tuesday's quarterly auction in Cheyenne, but they will require the BLM to further scrutinize each lease sold, causing longer waits for oil and gas companies to receive the leases they buy. The soonest the BLM will be able to issue the leases sold this week is early next year, after the BLM works through an existing backlog going back as far as two years, said BLM spokeswoman Beverly Gorny. Environmentalists oppose the leases of federal mineral rights on several grounds. Among other concerns, they say BLM didn't sufficiently consider how oil and gas drilling in certain areas might affect sage grouse...more