The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management issued an instruction memorandum in January 2018 aimed at accelerating energy leasing by streamlining environmental reviews and reducing the amount of time the public could comment on, and later protest, any leases.
“Faster and easier lease sales, at the expense of public participation, is not enough,” wrote the judge, who reinstated previous requirements that call for a 30-day public comment and administrative protest period.
Bush noted that the memo setting the new terms for leasing was issued without soliciting public comment and was “more edict in nature” than advisory.
The two groups that challenged the directive, the Western Watersheds Project and the Center for Biological Diversity, said the decision provided a respite for species that are threatened by energy development. Once numbering as many as 16 million, development and disease has shrunk the total number of greater sage-grouse to fewer than 500,000.
