Protecting Land From Gas Companies

-by Dough Pflugh

Supreme Court Pre­serves Vic­to­ry Over Oil/Gas Development

It is reward­ing to suc­cess­ful­ly wrap-up a case. This can be espe­cial­ly true when our work pro­tects spe­cial places, pre­serv­ing them for future gen­er­a­tions. It is a plea­sure to be able to point at a map and say, “Those are the places that were saved.”

The U.S. Supreme Court took action last week that did just that—endors­ing an ear­li­er con­ser­va­tion vic­to­ry and end­ing the long fight over pro­posed oil and gas devel­op­ment on the doorstep of beloved pub­lic lands in the west.

Utah’s trea­sured and icon­ic landscapes—including Arch­es Nation­al Park, Canyon­lands Nation­al Park and Dinosaur Nation­al Monument—are won­ders that were formed by nat­ur­al forces act­ing over mil­len­nia. Tides moved back and forth across great water bod­ies over ages. Moun­tains were lift­ed up and ground down; sed­i­ments were deposit­ed and scoured away. Those many steps were nec­es­sary to shape and refine what we val­ue today.

Sim­i­lar­ly, our work to pro­tect spe­cial places is often a lengthy process com­prised of many steps (although not stretch­ing for mil­len­nia!). We might begin with an admin­is­tra­tive process, fol­lowed with lit­i­ga­tion, fol­lowed in turn by an appeal.

We are always fight­ing the good fight but the out­come may be not clear until the case has run its entire course. Along the way, there might be numer­ous ups and downs, chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties that could not be fore­seen. When we do reach the end, how­ev­er, it is time to cel­e­brate the vic­to­ry and remem­ber why we worked so hard.

We are for­tu­nate to find our­selves at such a point of cel­e­bra­tion: the U.S. Supreme Court denial of a “peti­tion for cer­tio­rari” in the Impact Ener­gy v Salazar (Jew­ell) lit­i­ga­tion clos­es the door on the efforts of a group of oil and gas com­pa­nies and three Utah coun­ties to force through 77 fed­er­al leas­es in the heart of Utah’s redrock coun­try. Arch­es Nation­al Park, Canyon­lands Nation­al Park and Dinosaur Nation­al Mon­u­ment and oth­er pub­lic lands will remain pro­tect­ed for now.

The 77 leas­es, orig­i­nal­ly offered for sale dur­ing the twi­light days of the Bush admin­is­tra­tion, were emblem­at­ic of the indus­try-first approach to pub­lic lands man­age­ment that held sway through much of the last decade. As part of our ongo­ing work to pro­tect spe­cial places against the onslaught of oil and gas devel­op­ment, Earth­jus­tice and our con­ser­va­tion part­ners chal­lenged the leas­es.

Fol­low­ing a court order in 2009, Sec­re­tary Salazar scrapped the 77 leas­es after deter­min­ing that the Bureau of Land Man­age­ment had skimped on its envi­ron­men­tal analy­sis and failed to ade­quate­ly con­sult with the Nation­al Park Ser­vice. Indus­try and the Utah coun­ties pur­sued lit­i­ga­tion to force Sec­re­tary Salazar to issue the leas­es regard­less of these short­com­ings. We stood with the Sec­re­tary in defend­ing the withdrawal.

Although con­ser­va­tion­ists and the Unit­ed States defeat­ed the attempts to obtain the leas­es in both the dis­trict court and the Tenth Cir­cuit Court of Appeals, plain­tiffs pur­sued their quixot­ic quest all the way to the Supreme Court. The court’s denial removes the specter of air, water and noise pol­lu­tion that the pro­posed devel­op­ment would have posed to cher­ished Nation­al Park Ser­vice lands.

Robin Coo­ley, the attor­ney who defend­ed Sec­re­tary Salazar’s deci­sion not to issue the leas­es summed up the vic­to­ry this way:

The Supreme Court’s deci­sion is great news for Utah’s wild lands. The 77 leas­es were an ill-con­ceived, Bush-era give away to the oil and gas indus­try, and it’s high time the dis­pute over these leas­es was put to rest.

This is a time to cel­e­brate our vic­to­ry and recharge but not to declare “mis­sion accom­plished.” Just as the nat­ur­al process­es that formed these land­scapes con­tin­ue to reshape and refine our nat­ur­al won­ders, our work to pro­tect these places is not done. Many of the land man­age­ment plans that deter­mine the fate of our pub­lic lands remain flawed; indeed, Earth­jus­tice con­tin­ues to lit­i­gate over the Utah plans that allowed BLM to auc­tion the 77 leas­es. The Novem­ber 2013 Utah fed­er­al oil and gas lease sale includes more than 80,000 acres in the San Rafael Swell—another of Utah’s great treasures.

For now, though, the end of this case has been a rare piece of good news over the last few weeks for those of us who care about our pub­lic lands. Your sup­port of our work is what makes this report of good news pos­si­ble. As I write this, Con­gress has end­ed the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment shut­down and allowed for a return to nor­mal for our nation­al parks and mon­u­ments. Please get out and cel­e­brate this vic­to­ry by enjoy­ing the redrock coun­try or any of our pub­lic lands that are acces­si­ble to you!