An opportunity to update oil and gas leasing and protect outdoor recreation
Photo credit: Max Mortenson
Oil and gas leasing on public lands has a sizeable effect on outdoor recreation. In recent years, high profile conflicts between proposed development and outdoor recreation, such as a proposed lease sale on the famed Slickrock mountain bike trail in Utah, have made it even more clear that the BLM needs to reform its oil and gas leasing processes.
Inappropriately sited oil and gas development not only threatens access to trails and public lands, but it contributes to worsening climate change, puts clean air and water at risk, and affects viewsheds—since most people would prefer to climb with a view of mountains rather than of oil and gas wells.
Ongoing oil and gas development is also a hindrance to communities that are seeking to realize the economic benefits of outdoor recreation and need access to clean, healthy, and protected public lands and waters as a foundation of those changes.
Interior recently released a proposed rule that would provide needed reforms to the oil and gas leasing process, and they are looking for public feedback until September 22. These comment periods are important because they offer an opportunity for the public to share their support for oil and gas reforms that will better balance development with other values, like conservation and recreation, on public lands and waters. They are also a critical way that the agencies are putting the Inflation Reduction Act into practice to help address the climate crisis.
Interior’s proposed oil and gas reform rule includes several important updates the antiquated policies that currently govern the federal leasing program. They incorporate common-sense solutions that both codify and build on the bipartisan reforms enacted in the Inflation Reduction Act. Key elements of the rule include:
Trying to reduce conflicts with other conservation and recreation priorities: the new rule proposes filtering criteria to ensure that, when determining whether to offer nominated lands for a lease sale, the BLM will consider “preference” criteria to prevent unnecessary or undue degradation of lands with other important values such as outdoor recreation
Trying to limit “speculative leasing” where developers will bid on land that may have very low potential for development: the rule proposes fiscal reforms to disincentivize speculation that increase royalty and rental rates, minimum lease bids, and a new lease nomination fee
Protecting communities from pollution: the rule proposes increases to oil and gas lease bond amounts that reflect inflation and are sufficient to cover remediation costs and address the all-to-common practice of bankrupt operators who leave abandoned wells to taxpayers to pay for clean-up costs
This rulemaking is an important step towards eliminating waste and inefficiency while also moving the BLM’s stewardship of the nation’s public lands and minerals closer in line with the American public’s interest in protecting and preserving public lands, waters, and wildlife. You can read our comment letter to the BLM here.
Recently, Outdoor Alliance and Public Lands Solutions released a report detailing how the current process for oil and gas development threatens outdoor recreation, and sharing a number of ideas for how the BLM can update its oil and gas lease processes. You can read the report here, and a summary of the main ideas below.
Climate change profoundly affects outdoor recreation experiences, and oil and gas development is a major driver of climate change.
As we have shared many times, climate change negatively affects outdoor recreationists. From reduced snowpack, wildfires, low river flows and water insecurity, smoke, floods, and droughts that affect our ability to get outside to low air and water quality to public health, outdoor recreationists are seeing climate change firsthand. According to the United Nations’ climate science body, methane is responsible for 30% of the climate change we are experiencing today, and oil and gas is the largest industrial source of methane pollution, accounting for a third of emissions.
Oil and gas development also has direct impacts on recreation and on local communities looking to attract visitors, residents, and businesses.
Resource extraction negatively affects landscapes—visually, through contamination or pollution of air and water, and by damaging local outdoor economies. Many public lands communities rely on access to safe, protected public lands as a foundation of their economies—not just to drive tourism, but as a reason that both businesses and residents put down roots in these places. Oil and gas development can also be damaging to communities looking to diversify their economies and market themselves as outdoor hubs.
Federal land managers need better tools to ensure that proposed oil and gas development does not conflict with high value recreation.
Outdoor Alliance and Public Land Solutions propose a number of solutions for the problems with the current oil and gas leasing system. They include eliminating recreation parcels from leasing considerations, to limit conflicts like the one that happened at Slickrock. If recreation lands (or recreation-adjacent lands) are nonetheless included in lease sale proposals, we also encourage the BLM to include a “Recreation Resources Preservation Alternative” as a way to effectively preserve recreation on proposed leases. Expanding public participation in oil and gas lease sales is a crucial way to prevent conflicts between recreation and development. Finally, eliminating speculative leasing will help to protect lands with little to no development potential, and allow recreation or conservation values to take priority.
You can help protect public lands and waters by asking the BLM to update their oil and gas leasing processes below, or you can attend a public meeting (learn more and register here).