A coalition of environmental, recreational, political and business groups has come together to support the establishment of a 1.8 million acre national monument in the Colorado Plateau region of Southern Utah. The proposed Monument, covering an area larger than Delaware, would include areas surrounding Canyonlands National Park, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and the Manti-La […]
On July 27, 2015, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ordered the BLM to develop an “accelerated schedule” within the next 21 days to be used to decide whether to authorize development of 18 federal oil and gas leases that were originally issued in 1982, but have been suspended for several decades. As discussed earlier [insert […]
In an apparent attempt to head-off legislative changes to the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) that have been threatened by Congressional Republicans, President Obama unveiled a suite of proposed changed to the ESA species listing process. These changes, contained in a proposed rule that was announced on May 19, are largely focused on making it more […]
Utah’s Transfer of Public Lands Act (“TPLA”) demands that the federal government “extinguish” its title to more than 30 million acres of federal public lands by December 31, 2014. Utah Code Ann. § 63L-6-101 et seq. (2012). When the law was enacted in 2012, former Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar charged that the legislation […]
Colorado has now joined eight other western states in the ongoing discussion of state assumption of control of federally-managed public lands. This has been a hot button issue among western conservatives since the 1970’s, but the movement has recently gained new momentum with the States of Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Nevada in various stages […]
At the end of March 2015, Montana’s U.S. Senator Jon Tester joined the Blackfeet Nation in calling on the federal government to cancel 18 existing federal oil and gas leases located in Northwestern Montana. These leases have been the focus of controversy for several decades, and Senator Tester’s recent letter appears to signal a new […]
Last week, the United States Senate passed a largely symbolic budget amendment sponsored by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski (chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee) that “supports” the idea of selling, transferring or trading federally-managed public lands to the states. The idea of western states “taking back” public lands has been around since […]
On March 20, 2015, after considering more than 1.5 million comments, the BLM released its much anticipated fracking rule for oil and gas wells on Federal and Indian lands. More than 90 percent of all wells, including those on Federal and Indian property, are hydraulically fractured by injecting water, sand and chemicals under high pressure […]
On March 17, 2015, Secretary Jewell presented what was billed as a “major speech” to describe her vision of a “balanced prosperous energy future” at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Directly tying the U.S. “energy transformation” to the recovered U.S. economy, she noted, “The energy revolution we experienced in the past six years […]
On Tuesday, February 10, 2015, Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed an executive order directing state agencies to implement additional state-level protection measures aimed heading off a potential federal listing of the sage grouse as “threatened” or “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act. Under a settlement reached in 2012, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services have […]