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Judge Strikes Down US Energy Leasing Rules in Bird Habitat

Associated Press

   BILLINGS, MONTANA - A U.S. judge has dealt another blow to the Trump
   administration's efforts to increase domestic oil and gas output from
   public lands, saying officials failed to protect habitat for a
   declining bird species when it issued energy leases on hundreds of
   square miles.

   Judge Brian Morris said the Interior Department did not do enough to
   encourage development outside of areas with greater sage grouse, a
   ground-dwelling bird whose numbers have dropped dramatically in recent
   decades.

   The judge canceled energy leases on more than 470 square miles (1,200
   square kilometers) of public land in the western states of Montana and
   Wyoming. That means officials will have to return millions of dollars
   in sales proceeds to companies that purchased the leases.

   The leases at issue already had been invalidated in previous cases that
   went through other federal courts. But the latest ruling, handed down
   Friday, appears to go further and strike at a key component of the
   administration's broader energy policy.

   "The errors here occurred at the beginning of the oil and gas lease
   sale process, infecting everything that followed," Morris wrote.

   Megan Crandall, a spokesperson for Interior's Bureau of Land
   Management, said Tuesday that the agency stands behind the leasing
   guidelines it issued in 2018.

   "We assert that all of our lease sales are on sound legal footing and
   in full compliance" with federal environmental law, she said.

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