Judge voids nearly 1 million acres of oil and gas leases, saying Trump policy undercut public input

A federal judge in Idaho ruled Thursday that a Trump administration policy limiting public input on oil and gas leasing decisions was “arbitrary and capricious,” overturning the 2018 directive and voiding nearly 1 million acres of leases out West as a result. The ruling by U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Ronald E. Bush represented a win for environmentalists, who challenged the leasing policy as part of a broader effort to block drilling in habitat for the imperiled greater sage-grouse. The contested area spans 67 million acres across 11 Western states. As the Trump administration has pushed to expand domestic energy production — earlier this month the Interior Department celebrated the fact that last year more than 1 billion barrels of oil were produced from drilling offshore and on public land — it has adopted several measures to curb public comment on regulatory decisions. While the effort has accelerated the timeline for drilling, it has also raised legal concerns. The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management issued an instruction memorandum in January 2018 aimed at accelerating energy leasing by streamlining environmental reviews and reducing the amount of time the public could comment on, and later protest, any leases. “Faster and easier lease sales, at the expense of public participation, is not enough,” wrote the judge, who reinstated previous requirements that call for a 30-day public comment and administrative protest period...MORE