The Bureau of Land Management announced a decision today to reaffirm 51 oil and gas leases in Emery County. Due to a legal challenge and settlement agreement, the BLM reconsidered 59 leases issued from BLM’s March and December 2018 competitive oil and gas lease sales in the Price Field Office.

As part of the settlement agreement, the BLM completed a supplemental environmental assessment and public comment period. The remaining eight challenged leases were voluntarily relinquished by the lessee in October 2023.

The environmental assessment for each of these lands came back with a finding that there was no significant environmental impact from these leases. The leases were analyzed through three different alternatives from the No Action Alternative. Alternative A used enviromental impacts to evaluate if the BLM should reaffirm its decision for the 59 leases.

Alternative B took into account the wilderness and characteristics of the land, an alternative which would’ve led to 49 of the leases being canceled.

Finally, Alternative C was a lease cancellation alternative, which would simply cancel all 59 of the leases.

After analyzing all three of the alternative options, the BLM went with Alternative A, which reaffirmed the previous decisions regarding the leases.

For the official documents, visit the BLM National NEPA Register to view the decision, environmental assessment, and for additional information and associated documents.