What Doug Burgum’s press release didn’t mention
On Monday, the Interior department announced in a press release that it was proposing revisions to the Bureau of Land Management’s oil and gas leasing rule, which governs oil and gas drilling on national public lands. Now that the text of the proposed rule has been posted on the Federal Register website, we took a closer look at the changes to see what Interior glossed over in its press release. Unsurprisingly, the implications for public lands are far more serious than the press release made it sound.
Bonding levels reduced even further than what was announced in the press release
In 2024, the Interior department increased bond amounts to a minimum of $150,000 for individual leases, and $500,000 for statewide bonds, helping to ensure oil and gas companies cleaned up after themselves. This was the first time bond amounts had been increased since the 1960s. Monday’s press release stated that bond amounts would be reduced to $25,000, which is true only for statewide bonds; for individual leases, the bond amount is reduced even further, to $10,000. The proposed rule also requests comments from the public on whether nationwide bonds should be an option, a possibility that the 2024 rule had eliminated. If reauthorized, the BLM would set the nationwide bond minimum at $150,000. This means that taxpayers will be stuck with even more of the cost for cleaning up oil and gas operators’ messes.
Scoping and comment periods eliminated, leaving only a reduced ten-day protest period
Interior’s press release stated that it was reducing public comment periods for oil and gas lease sales from 90 days to just ten days. According to the rule text, it is achieving this by eliminating both 30-day scoping periods and 30-day comment periods on draft documents prepared according to the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The BLM attempts to justify this by arguing that public comment periods are not required by NEPA and that BLM already takes public comments during land use planning anyway, therefore an additional environmental review for lease sales is not necessary. According to the BLM, “[P]ublic participation periods often extend the overall timeline unnecessarily, without providing significant added value or meaningful changes to the analysis.” The only remaining public comment opportunity would be a ten-day protest period, reduced from 30 days currently, and protest filings would be limited to 50 pages with a $1 fee per page for every page over 50 pages, including attachments and possibly even including the page counts of any hyperlinked documents. In short, BLM plans to charge Americans if they want to provide evidence of illegal or improper lease sales.
Lease application fees drastically reduced
In line with the BLM’s indication that it does not plan to conduct environmental reviews for each lease sale, the proposed rules reduce the lease application fees, which are meant to cover the BLM’s costs for conducting NEPA reviews—from $3,100 under current rules, to $155 under the proposed rules. Yet another handout to the oil and gas industry on top of the slashed bonding amounts.
Surface owner notification requirement eliminated
In many places, the land surface is owned by a different owner than the subsurface minerals, a situation referred to as “split estate.” In split estate situations, subsurface mineral rights take precedence over the rights of the surface owner. Under current rules, the BLM must notify any split estate surface owners of proposed lease sales for subsurface minerals under their land. The proposed rules eliminate this requirement, complaining that it “imposes undue burdens on the oil and gas industry.” In other words, land owners could wake up to discover the federal government leased the right to drill under their homes with no notification at all.
Featured image: Oil and gas development in Wyoming, Bureau of Land Management