Every single time the American Petroleum Institute (API) is mad about something, it’s a great thing for anyone standing up to the oil and gas companies it represents. The latest victory against the API is a settlement that was reached on Tuesday between the Bureau of Land Management and environmental groups like the Center for Biological Diversity, WildEarth Guardians, and the Sierra Club. The settlement concerns Trump-era leasing decisions pertaining to 113 oil and gas leases in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
Under the settlement, those sales, which make up 58,617 acres of public land, will undergo additional National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review to consider all the environmental concerns the Trump administration missed in issuing those leases. The API and the state of Wyoming, where the decision was reached, stand firmly against the move, and both argue that it could financially harm the companies doing business on those public lands, according to the Associated Press. That concern is comical considering all the harm the many companies behind API cause to the planet.
The Bureau of Land Management’s willingness to block drilling as it reassesses those leases is a welcomed sign to the environmental groups fighting this battle. For Taylor McKinnon with the Center for Biological Diversity, it shows “that the Biden administration has wide latitude to rein in federal fossil fuels” and that the administration could very well invalidate the sales themselves.
“Allowing any new fossil fuel projects, including oil and gas leasing, is incompatible with avoiding catastrophic climate change,” McKinnon said in a press release. “The administration still has much work to do to bring federal fossil fuel production to a swift and orderly end.”
The work isn’t done, as WildEarth Guardians, notes: groups will continue to hold the Bureau of Land Management accountable using mechanisms like lawsuits to ensure that the agency takes climate concerns seriously instead of rolling over and letting fossil fuel companies do as they please.