## Facts

- The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approved multiple federal oil and gas lease sales, including a set of lease sales in Wyoming, under the Mineral Leasing Act.
- For the challenged lease sales, BLM prepared Environmental Assessments (EAs) and issued Findings of No Significant Impact (FONSIs), rather than preparing Environmental Impact Statements (EISs).
- The EAs discussed climate change in general terms and acknowledged that oil and gas development contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change.
- The EAs did not quantify or forecast GHG emissions from (1) drilling and production on the leased parcels or (2) downstream emissions from combustion of produced oil and gas.
- The EAs did not place the lease sales’ expected emissions in a cumulative context (e.g., by comparing them to state, regional, or national inventories or projections).
- Environmental organizations sued, alleging BLM failed to take a “hard look” at climate impacts as required by NEPA and acted arbitrarily and capriciously under the APA.
- Defendants and industry intervenors argued that quantifying emissions at the leasing stage was infeasible and too speculative because development might not occur and later reviews could address impacts.

## Issues

1. Whether BLM’s use of EAs and FONSIs for the challenged lease sales satisfied NEPA’s “hard look” requirement at the leasing stage.
2. Whether NEPA required BLM to quantify reasonably foreseeable direct, indirect (including downstream combustion), and cumulative GHG emissions from the Wyoming lease sales, or adequately explain why quantification could not be done.
3. Whether BLM’s climate analysis, as reflected in the EAs and FONSIs, was arbitrary and capricious under the APA.
4. What remedy was appropriate if NEPA violations were found (vacatur versus remand and the scope of relief).
5. Whether to grant a motion for leave to file an amicus brief.

## Decision

- The court granted in part plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and denied defendants’ and intervenors’ cross-motions.
- The court held that, for certain Wyoming lease sales, BLM’s NEPA analysis was deficient because it did not quantify reasonably foreseeable GHG emissions or provide a record-based explanation for not doing so.
- The court concluded that BLM’s Wyoming leasing analyses were arbitrary and capricious under the APA to the extent they failed to take a hard look at climate impacts.
- The court remanded the NEPA analyses for the affected Wyoming lease sales for further consideration and supplementation addressing GHG emissions and climate impacts.
- The court declined to order sweeping relief across all challenged lease sales, including certain leases in Utah and Colorado, where plaintiffs did not show the same deficiencies on the record presented.
- The court denied the motion for leave to file an amicus brief as unnecessary to resolve the case.

## Legal Principles

- NEPA requires agencies to take a “hard look” at environmental consequences, providing enough analysis and context to inform decisionmakers and the public.
- Where reasonably foreseeable, NEPA review must address direct effects, indirect effects (including downstream combustion emissions), and cumulative effects of the agency action.
- An agency cannot rely on generalized discussion of climate change if project-level emissions can be reasonably estimated; it must either quantify emissions using available tools (including estimates, ranges, or scenarios) or provide a reasoned, record-supported explanation for why it cannot.
- Leasing decisions can constitute an irretrievable commitment of resources; NEPA’s analysis must occur early enough to inform the decision to lease, not be deferred wholesale to later permitting stages.
- Under the APA, NEPA compliance is set aside when the agency’s analysis is arbitrary and capricious, including when it offers conclusory assertions of infeasibility while ignoring reasonably available methodologies.

## Conclusion

The court required BLM to provide a more concrete, project-level and cumulative-context climate analysis for certain Wyoming oil and gas lease sales, holding that NEPA’s hard-look obligation generally demands quantification or a reasoned explanation for the absence of quantification, and remanding for further agency analysis rather than ordering across-the-board vacatur.


WildEarth Guardians v. Zinke, 368 F. Supp. 3d 41 (D.D.C. 2019)