US appeals court sides with NM in Otero Mesa fight

The Bureau of Land Management failed to comply with federal law in developing a plan for managing oil and natural gas development on southern New Mexico's Otero Mesa. That's the ruling today by a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver. The judges say the BLM skirted the National Environmental Protection Act by not considering an alternative that would have put the mesa off limits to drilling and by not analyzing all of the likely impacts of the agency's chosen alternative. The BLM says it's reviewing the panel's decision. The panel says Otero Mesa is the largest publicly owned expanse of undisturbed Chihuahuan Desert grassland in the United States. It has become a battleground for environmentalists, state officials and the oil and gas industry...AP