Judge: BLM fell short in oil, gas plan review

A federal judge has agreed with activists that the Bureau of Land Management failed to adequately consider greenhouse gas impacts from oil and gas consumption in its new resource management plan for the Colorado River Valley Field Office. Judge Lewis T. Babcock also found that the agency "failed to consider reasonable alternatives to oil and gas leasing and development" as part of its review of alternatives in the plan. Babcock has ordered the plaintiffs in the suit to try to negotiate a remedy to the shortfalls in the BLM's review, and to submit written briefs on a proposed remedy if an agreement can't be reached. His ruling came in a suit brought by the Carbondale-based Wilderness Workshop, the Western Colorado Congress (now the Western Colorado Alliance), the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club. It pertains to the Silt-based field office's administration of more than half a million acres of BLM-managed surface acres and more than 700,000 acres of BLM-managed minerals in Garfield, Eagle, Mesa, Pitkin and Routt counties...MORE