On October 29, 2021, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced that state offices will solicit feedback from the public this week on proposed oil and gas lease sales to be held in early 2022 through draft environmental assessments. In addition to analyzing the effects of lease sales on air and water quality, wildlife habitats, and community impacts, these environmental assessments will also analyze greenhouse gas emissions on a national scale, including the social cost of carbon. Coupled with this announcement, BLM released its analysis of cumulative greenhouse gas emissions from coal, oil, and gas activities on public lands, which informed the greenhouse gas analysis in the forthcoming proposed lease sale environmental assessments by analyzing expected lifetime emissions from existing and potential new fossil fuel leases on federal lands.
The draft environmental assessments will be open for public comment for 30 days and, based on the comments received, may result in the deferral of parcels previously identified during the proposed sale scoping period that ended on October 1.
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