A federal judge has partially blocked a vast oil and gas drilling project in Wyoming, citing violations of environmental laws and ordering a reassessment of the project’s potential impacts on groundwater.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled on Sept. 13 that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and other federal agencies had failed to properly evaluate the environmental consequences of the Converse County Oil and Gas Project, a 5,000-well development in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.
The project, which was expected to create around 8,000 jobs and $28 billion in federal revenue, was approved in the final days of the Trump presidency. At the time, it was hailed by Republican lawmakers and BLM officials as a way of bolstering domestic energy production and independence.
Environmental groups sued to block the project, arguing that the approval process was rushed and incomplete, the drilling would degrade bird habitat, and the massive fossil fuel implications of the project ran counter to the fight against the “global climate crisis.”
Chutkan sided with the plaintiffs, finding that the BLM’s failure to properly assess the environmental effects of the project, particularly with respect to groundwater depletion, amounted to a violation of a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirement that federal agencies take a “hard look” at the environmental impacts of their actions.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/federal-judge-partially-blocks-wyoming-oil-and-gas-project-5724189?