{"id":112520,"date":"2025-08-02T08:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T08:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/112520\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T08:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T08:37:10","slug":"blm-calls-new-oil-and-gas-rules-noncontroversial-exempts-them-from-public-comment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/112520\/","title":{"rendered":"BLM Calls New Oil and Gas Rules \u2018Noncontroversial,\u2019 Exempts Them From Public Comment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Bureau of Land Management implemented four rules today that create more leeway for oil and gas companies wanting to drill on public lands, as required by the spending bill President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress passed in July. But voters will not have a chance to comment on two of the rules<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lands \u201celigible\u201d and \u201cavailable\u201d for oil and gas leases will now be determined using definitions laid out in the bill<\/a>, as opposed to the discretion of the BLM. These new definitions include areas defined as available for oil and gas leasing in resource management plans, which can sometimes be several decades old<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other changes require the agency to offer new acres for leasing within 18 months of a company expressing interest, and prevent the BLM from adding any new stipulations to a lease unless they are present in an existing resource management plan. Unused drilling permits now last four years, up from three, and the agency has waived the $5-per-acre nomination fee for companies submitting claims on public lands .<\/p>\n

The BLM did not answer questions about how the agency determined these rules were \u201cnoncontroversial.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRemoving the nomination fee will allow companies to propose vast tracts of public lands for leasing, which the BLM will now be required to offer within 18 months,\u201d said Kate Groetzinger, communications manager for Center for Western Priorities, in a statement. Given the recent federal layoffs, \u201cthe BLM will have to shift significant resources into preparing these lease sales, effectively making the BLM a single-use agency dedicated to oil and gas management.\u201d<\/p>\n

While these changes are the result of new congressional legislation, federal law typically requires agencies to offer public comment periods on new rules. There are exceptions under the Administrative Procedure Act<\/a> if an agency has \u201cgood cause\u201d to find the comment periods are \u201cimpractical, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

To justify changing leasing terminology and eliminating the application fee without public input, the BLM said that \u201cnotice and comment are unnecessary because [these rules are] noncontroversial.\u201d<\/p>\n

Environmentalists disagreed, taking issue with the way the administration is handling the public comment period.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy issuing all of these changes as final rather than draft rules, the Trump administration is signaling its disregard for public input,\u201d Groetzinger said. \u201cThis is not how public land management is supposed to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Industry groups found the new rules reasonable. \u201cWe\u2019re pleased BLM is moving quickly because, in some instances, these rules will help agency staff working in the field offices and judges considering cases on federal leases,\u201d said Melissa Simpson, president of Western Energy Alliance, in a statement. \u201cCongress provided clarification that we\u2019ve seen is necessary as we\u2019ve been defending federal leases over the past decade in multiple venues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simpson did not comment on the agency\u2019s decision to withhold public comment for two of the rules.<\/p>\n

Republicans faced broad bipartisan pushback<\/a> and fierce local objections to their effort to sell off public lands earlier this year, and some say the party has not learned its lesson. By failing to offer a public comment period for some rules and truncating the time allowed for commenting on others, the administration \u201ccontinues to show a concerning trend for taking regulatory action that risks cutting out the public voice,\u201d said Gregg DeBie, senior staff attorney at the Wilderness Society, in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the Trump administration was listening to the people they are meant to serve, they\u2019d hear loud and clear that our public lands are shared spaces that deserve protections, not places for oil and gas companies to grow even richer and dig us deeper into fossil fuel dependency,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The other<\/a> two rules<\/a> will become effective by Sept. 30, unless the agency receives \u201csignificant adverse comments\u201d by Sept. 2. Under former President Joe Biden, a BLM rule overhauling oil and gas leasing and royalty rates on public lands offered the public a 60-day comment period<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\tAbout This Story<\/p>\n

Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That\u2019s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.<\/p>\n

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Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.<\/p>\n

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Thank you,<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tJake Bolster\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tReporter, Wyoming and the West<\/p>\n

Jake Bolster reports on Wyoming and the West for Inside Climate News. Previously, he worked as a freelancer, covering climate change, energy, and the environment across the United States. He holds a Masters in Journalism from Columbia University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bureau of Land Management implemented four rules today that create more leeway for oil and gas companies…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":112521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[746,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-112520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114958267253664126","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}