federal lands

Some Republican members of Congress have denounced the Biden administration’s recent move to withdraw hundreds of square miles of federal land in New Mexico from oil and gas development.

Last year’s GOM auction received high bids on just 93 blocks. Higher oil prices could attract bidders back to the planned lease sale.

A federal judge in Idaho has voided nearly 1 million acres of oil and gas leases on federal lands in the West, saying that a Trump administration policy that limited public input on those leases was “arbitrary and capricious.”

About 60% of federal oil and gas drilling leases offered since 2017 are located in areas that are at risk of shortages and droughts, according to a report released on 19 November.

Across the West, thousands of oil and gas wells sit idle on federal lands, and many are orphaned with the companies that drilled them now defunct. These orphaned wells can pose environmental and safety hazards, but, as critics note, the Bureau of Land Management does not have a good way of tracking

A new US government management plan clears the way for oil and gas drilling on land that used to be off limits as part of a sprawling national monument in Utah before President Donald Trump downsized the protected area 2 years ago.

The Trump administration said it is reevaluating its controversial plan to sharply expand offshore drilling as it responds to a court ruling that blocked oil and gas development off Alaska and parts of the Atlantic.

A federal judge in Alaska has ruled an executive order by President Donald Trump allowing offshore oil drilling of tens of millions of acres in the Arctic Ocean is "unlawful and invalid."

The green light comes 4 years after the privately-held firm filed its development and production plan. Liberty Island would consist of gravel, stretch 9 acres, and sit just a few miles offshore.

Environmentalists have sued a US agency to try to stop it from allowing oil and gas drilling on a vast stretch of federal land in Nevada, where the government is reversing protections put in place 9 months ago under the Obama administration.