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Massive public lands oil and gas drilling plans in Utah set aside for climate

Date
September 27, 2022
Contact
Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians, jnichols@wildearthguardians.org, 303-437-7663
In This Release
Climate + Energy  
#ClimateJustice, #KeepItInTheGround, #NoNewLeases, #PressStatement

Vernal, UTAH—A massive public lands oil and gas drilling proposal in northeastern Utah’s Uinta Basin has been set aside by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management on climate and greenhouse gas grounds.

“This is a major victory for public lands and our climate,” said Jeremy Nichols, Climate and Energy Program Director for WildEarth Guardians. “This proposal opened the door for a costly increase in drilling and fracking at a time when we need to be keeping oil and gas in the ground, we’re pleased the Biden administration has agreed to reconsider this decision.”

In a decision dated August 29, 2022 but received this week, the Bureau of Land Management upheld an appeal filed by WildEarth Guardians in 2017 challenging the Monument Butte oil and gas development project.

Approved by the Trump administration, the Monument Butte oil and gas project authorized the oil and gas industry to drill 5,750 new oil and gas wells across 119,000 acres of publicly owned lands in the Uinta Basin of northeast Utah.  The drilling and fracking would turn an area larger than the City of Denver into a complete oil and gas industrial sacrifice zone.

In response to Guardians’ appeal, the Director of the Bureau of Land Management’s Utah State Office “grant[ed], in part, WEG’s [WildEarth Guardians’] request for SDR [State Director Review] regarding its concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and climate change,” and stated, “it is my decision to set aside the Monument Butte ROD [Record of Decision][.]”

“We can’t frack our way to a safe climate,” said Nichols. “With the Monument Butte decision now set aside, we have a critical opportunity to ensure public lands are put into service for our climate and our future, not for the oil and gas industry.”

The Bureau of Land Management’s own analysis approving the Monument Butte development showed that the drilling and fracking would lead to the release of more than 60 million metric tons of carbon pollution annually, as much as 17 coal-fired power plants. This amount of carbon pollution is enough to melt 70 square miles of Arctic sea ice every year.

The Bureau of Land Management only responded to WildEarth Guardians’ 2017 appeal after a 2022 win before the U.S. Interior Board of Land Appeals.  In a ruling handed down in January 2022, the Board ordered the Bureau of Land Management to finally respond to WildEarth Guardians’ appeal.

The Bureau of Land Management’s latest decision comes as the Biden administration has pledged to review and reconsider oil and gas leasing and drilling on public lands and to take action to account for the climate costs of fossil fuel production.

Analyses show that already-producing fossil fuel fields, if fully developed, will push warming past 1.5 degrees Celsius. Avoiding such warming requires ending new investment in fossil fuel projects and phasing out production to keep as much as 40 percent of already-developed fields in the ground.

Photos of the Monument Butte project area can be viewed here.

Public lands in the Uinta Basin of northeast Utah. Photo by WildEarth Guardians.