Recently, NRDC, Center for Biological Diversity, Great Old Broads for the Wilderness, and the Montana chapter of the Sierra Club filed an administrative protest challenging BLM’s plan to auction off oil and gas resources on approximately 20,000 acres of public land in northern Montana throughout Glacier, Toole, Choteau, Liberty, Hill, Phillips, and Valley counties.
The protest raises, among other issues, concerns regarding air and water quality impacts, potential harm to threatened species (including the pallid sturgeon and the greater sage-grouse), and the agency’s failure to consider foreseeable climate impacts resulting from the lease sale.
This protest is part of a growing national movement calling on President Obama to expand his climate legacy by halting new federal fossil fuel leasing on public lands and waters— a step that would jump-start our nation’s transition to a clean energy economy rather than entrenching our dependence on fossil fuels.
Given the known risks that oil and gas development pose to public health and the environment, sacrificing 20,000 acres of public lands just doesn’t make sense.