Precedent-Setting Global Warming Agreement Approved between MEIC and the U.S. BLM

(March 2010)  U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula has approved a landmark agreement between MEIC and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. It requires the government to suspend 38,000 acres of oil and gas leases throughout Montana while it analyzes how oil field exploration, development, and production contribute to global warming.

MEIC and two other groups sued when the leases were sold in 2008, arguing that the industry’s activities are rife with waste and use inefficient technologies that could easily be improved.

[PHOTO:  Drilling a well into the Bakken formation in Richland County.  Photo by Don Thompson, from DNRC’s Montana Board of Oil and Gas website.}

At issue are the greenhouse gases emitted by drilling machinery, and industry practices such as venting unwanted natural gas directly into the atmosphere. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, oil and gas operations contribute about 23% of annual U.S. methane emissions and 2% of total greenhouse gas emissions, Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Under the settlement, BLM must suspend all 61 leases before the end of June 2010. The leases will then have to go through a new round of environmental review before the suspensions can be lifted.

An oil and gas industry group, the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, intervened in the case in an unsuccessful attempt to keep the leases valid. It contended that the emissions from oil and gas field operations are necessary to develop an important domestic resource. And it argued that natural gas usage is preferable to dirtier fuels such as coal in terms of climate change contributions.

BLM spokesman Greg Albright told The Washington Post that “reviewing lease sales for climate change will be a first for the agency. How it will be done is still being worked out, and it is unclear if the BLM will adopt such reviews as a standard requirement. This is really early, so I don’t know what the ramifications will be.”

He said that complicating the effort is the fact that the leases are scattered across several BLM districts in the state, each with different environmental policies under which land management decisions are made.

The organizations joining MEIC in the case were the Oil and Gas Accountability Project and Wild Earth Guardians. The groups were represented by the Western Environmental Law Center.

COURT DOCUMENTS

• Settlement Agreement, MEIC, et al. v. U.S. Bureau of Land Management, et al. (Defendants) and Independent Petroleun Association of Mountain States (Defendant-Itervenors).  Filed 3/12/2010.
  
• First Amended Complaint for Declaratory and Injuncitive Relief.  Plaintiffs: MEIC, Oil & Gas Accountability Project (a project of EarthWorks), and Wild Earth Guardians.  Filed 1/15/2009.
• Court Order Approving Joint Motion to Dismiss with Prejudice.  Filed 3/18/2010.
• List of Suspended Leases 
  

See also:

(August 2010)

IN THE NEWS

• BLM Suspends Some Oil and Gas Lease Sales to Review Warming Impacts (by Noelle Straub, Greenwire, printed in The New York Times, April 9, 2010)
  
• Oil and gas leases put on hold in Mont., Dakotas (by Matthew Brown, AP, posted April 9, 2010 in BusinessWeek.com)
  
• Climate change cited as Montana oil & gas leases suspended (by Matthew Brown, AP, posted in washtingtonpost.com, March 18, 2010)