The Bureau of Land Management is taking public comments on a proposal to offer nearly 79,000 acres in northwestern Arizona for oil and gas drilling, the first lease sale in the state since 2018. Previous oil and gas exploration in the area has been unsuccessful, prompting questions from geologists, land managers, and others about the proposal.
“I’m perplexed by this,” Ryan Porter, a seismologist and geophysicist at Northern Arizona University, told the Arizona Republic. “There have been lots of wells drilled up there and there’s not an oil field up there now, which means they probably didn’t find anything.”
Aaron Weiss, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, pointed out that this is part of a pattern of a rush to take advantage of President Donald Trump’s ‘energy dominance’ agenda: “Nominations increased immediately after the election in 2024 in anticipation of more of those acres eventually being offered for lease,” Weiss told the Arizona Republic. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law in July 2025, eliminated a per-acre fee for nominations of parcels the oil and gas industry wants the BLM to offer for lease. The fee was designed to discourage speculative nominations of parcels that had little or no oil and gas potential, but that oil and gas companies could tie up in the leasing process at no cost. This prevents these areas from being managed for recreation, wildlife habitat or other values.
“It just seems really irresponsible,” said Steve Martin, former superintendent at Grand Canyon National Park and now with the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks. “There’s a really good chance that there’s no oil out here, but we’re going to go ahead and run a bunch of bulldozers around anyway.”
More ethics questions for Burgum and Budd-Falen
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has personally intervened in multiple matters involving former clients of Associate Deputy Interior Secretary Karen Budd-Falen, according to reporting by Public Domain. The latest example is the recent decision to revoke a grazing permit held by the nonprofit American Prairie; Burgum personally intervened in the case to deliver on a long-time objective of Budd-Falen’s former clients.
“Public lands should be managed for the long-term benefit of all Americans, not for the short-term personal gain of Karen Budd-Falen or her clients,” Landon Newell, staff attorney at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, told Public Domain. “Recent news coverage makes clear that an investigation into her actions at DOI is warranted.”
Quick hits
Pending BLM nominee brings renewed concerns for Idaho’s public lands
‘Going to be a s***show’: Parks, Interior struggle to hire temporary staff ahead of busy season
How the Southwest’s lithium boom will impact Tribal communities
NM congressional delegation urges renewed public opposition to looming ‘Roadless Rule’ repeal
Nevada punts plan to curtail water in state’s largest river basin amid severe drought
Trump’s push to keep coal plants open is costing hundreds of millions
New paper shows surges of concentrated precipitation can lead to dryer landscapes
The environmental movement needs to find nature again
Quote of the day
We can’t afford a BLM Director like Steve Pearce that will squander our most precious resource; the public lands that provide revenue, habitat, public recreation, and support our Idaho way of life.”
—Alexis Pickering, Conservation Voters for Idaho, Coeur d’Alene Press
Picture This
Can you smell that? 🌻 The flowers are blooming at Canyonlands National Park! A favorite is the Cliffrose, because of their beauty and their smell. Cliffrose fill the air with a sweet-smelling perfume that attracts hikers as well as bees and other pollinators. Their name originates from the fact they are part of the “rose” family and they grow on rocks and cliffs. You can find cliffrose at Shafer Canyon Overlook and countless places throughout the park. Come take a whiff!
NPS photo/J. Ivy
Featured image: Virgin River Canyon Recreation Area in northwestern Arizona, BLM Arizona