Case Summary

Issue:

Whether a federal district court may cancel federal oil and gas leases absent proof of irreparable injury?

Plaintiff:

Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club

Defendants:

The Bureau of Land Management and Sally Jewell, Secretary of the Department of the Interior

Amicus Curiae:

California Independent Petroleum Association, represented by MSLF

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Status

Court

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division

Case History

In December 2011, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club challenged the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) sale of four oil and gas leases involving California’s Monterey-Santos Shale Formation.  They alleged that the BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by relying up an outdated environmental assessment (EA) when it issued the leases.  The EA was premised upon the assumption that only one exploratory well would be drilled in the area to be leased, and did not address the issue of hydraulic fracturing in much detail.  Instead, the BLM noted that it would reserve its detailed analysis of the impacts of fracturing until application for permits to drill (APD) were submitted because analyzing site-specific impacts is more feasible at that point.

In March 2013, the magistrate judge ruled in favor of the two groups by concluding that the BLM violated NEPA when it issued a “finding of no significant impact” (FONSI) because it failed to consider all the “reasonably foreseeable” environmental effects that could result from the lease sale.  The BLM had argued that it could not be charged with considering the effects of hydraulic fracturing, because it has no authority to regulate fracturing at the lease sale stage.  The magistrate judge disagreed and ruled the BLM should have prepared a full-blown environmental impact statement (EIS) instead of issuing a FONSI based on an EA due to the uncertain impacts of fracturing.  Meanwhile, in mid-April 2013, the groups filed a second lawsuit in the same court over the leasing of nearly 18,000 acres. 

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