The Trump administration has shelved plans to offer nearly 350,000 acres for oil and gas leasing in Wyoming, according to documents seen by Reuters, citing protections for a threatened Western bird.
In notices posted on a Bureau of Land Management website on 11 and 14 September, the agency’s Wyoming office said it had deferred the sale of all oil and gas parcels located in what are known as sage grouse habitat management areas while it finalizes a new strategy for how leasing there will be prioritized.
Habitat management areas require protections for sage grouse but permit some development.
The documents cited a May court decision by a US judge in Montana that invalidated a 2018 memorandum by Trump’s Interior Department opening up hundreds of thousands of acres to oil and gas leasing that had been restricted under an Obama-era plan to protect the prairie bird.
The court order was a blow to President Donald Trump’s efforts to increase energy production on federal lands by rolling back environmental regulation.