Communities across the West are clamoring to be more involved in the oil and gas leasing process, but the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has thrown a bucket of cold water on a more inclusive and transparent process.
The BLM has issued new guidance to its employees—in the form of an Instructional Memorandum—asserting that oil and gas companies are no longer required to provide their name when nominating public lands for lease. The BLM’s new policy is a big loss for transparency, for public participation, and for communities concerned about industrial oil and gas development encroaching on neighborhoods, family farms, national parks, and prized hunting grounds.
Oil and gas leasing on public lands is an industry-driven process that begins when a company nominates an area for drilling by submitting an “expression of interest” (EOI) to the BLM. After reviewing a nominated area, the BLM will typically put the land up for lease unless the process is slowed by protests or litigation.
Traditionally, the BLM has required companies to include their names when submitting an EOI, but kept information on the EOI submitter’s secret until after a lease sale. There was no way for the public to find out which companies nominated lands or examine the environmental and safety track record of a nominator until after the lease sale.
The agency has maintained that disclosure could “affect the bidding on lease parcels and harm the public interest.” But this contention was rejected by a U.S. District Court judge who ruled that the practice of withholding names from the public “runs directly contrary to the purpose of the public sale process.”
District Judge Richard Matsch asserted that:
“The identity of the submitter may be relevant [to those] who may raise concerns about the stewardship records of that potential owner, a factor relevant to the environmental impact of the proposed sale.”
The ruling led the BLM to release the names of three companies who had nominated lands in Colorado’s North Fork Valley—the area at issue in Judge Matsch’s ruling. But instead of making the common sense decision to begin disclosing EIO submitters to the public, the BLM has done just the opposite.
In its new policy, the BLM allows a company to nominate public lands anonymously; not only will the public be kept in the dark, the BLM will have no idea who is asking to drill on public lands. In absolute contrast to Judge Matsch’s decision, the BLM is claiming that “the name of an EOI submitter is of limited value in the development of a competitive oil and gas lease sale…”
Nonsense. Responsible oil and gas development means full disclosure: of the companies proposing to drill, of chemicals used during the extraction process, and of the potential risks and impacts of energy development. The identity of companies nominating public lands for industrial oil and gas drilling is absolutely relevant. Communities have a right to know what companies are looking to drill and frack in their backyard, and the companies’ stellar—or not so stellar—track records. The BLM, unfortunately, seems more intent on closing the curtains over the leasing process, instead of pulling down the shutters.