New Mexico ex rel. Richardson v. Bureau of Land Management

After discovering natural gas at Otero Mesa, an area with little prior oil and gas development, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) (defendant) prepared to amend its resource-management plan and issued a draft environmental-impact statement (EIS) limiting surface disturbance to areas within 492 feet of existing roads. In its final EIS, BLM replaced that limitation with a rule capping disturbances at 5 percent of the total land area at any time, without restricting where those disturbances could occur, reasoning that the same overall acreage would ultimately be affected either way and that no further environmental analysis was needed. BLM then executed oil and gas leases before analyzing the environmental impact of development at each specific leasing site. New Mexico and environmental groups (plaintiffs) sued, arguing BLM needed to issue a supplemental environmental assessment for the changed plan and conduct site-specific analysis before leasing. The district court agreed only as to the site-specific analysis requirement, and the plaintiffs appealed the EIS ruling.