Environmental lawyers hope for different approach to fracking suits

Environmental lawyers are hopeful that the Biden administration will take a different approach to Trump-era fracking lawsuits that are still being litigated.

The Center for Biological Diversity and other conservation groups sued in January 2020 alleging that the Bureau of Land Management violated federal law by neglecting the consequences of fracking on public health and its harm to the environment. But since the new administration took over, the U.S. Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division has filed several motions to stay the case. U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer in Los Angeles granted a request on Wednesday to stay the case until November. Center For Biological Diversity et al. v. U.S. Bureau of Land Management et al., 2:20-cv-00371 (C.D. Cal., filed Jan. 14, 2020).

The lawsuits were filed after the Trump administration announced it would lease more than 1 million acres of public land in Central California for oil drilling and fracking. Previous administrations have also tried to open up public space for drilling. When the Obama administration in 2012 tried to lease oil and gas rights in California, a federal judge ruled that the bureau violated the National Environmental Policy Act since it did not consider the dangers of fracking. The hold stayed in place until the Trump administration updated the management plans to lease land.

Brendan R. Cummings, conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity, is hopeful the Biden administration will take a different approach. But concerns remain. President Joe Biden issued an order in January that paused oil and gas leasing. While the order has been challenged in Louisiana, Cummings said that executive action is one of the most important steps the administration can take.

"The Biden administration, through executive orders in the initial weeks of the presidency, clearly staked out a policy position that further fossil fuel leasing on public lands is incompatible with meeting our climate goals," Cummings said.

With the bureau yet to have a confirmed director, Cummings said the Department of Justice's default position is to defend and the bureau does not have a clear direction of how to move forward with the lawsuits. According to Cummings, Biden has shown more willingness to continue plans to open up some spaces in Alaska.

But California backed the Center for Biological Diversity's lawsuit to stop the lease of public land in the state, so Cummings said he is hopeful that the lawsuits will be successful. The parties are in settlement talks, he said.

"If I were to sum up my mood about Biden, the best thing he did on this issue was in the first two weeks of his presidency," Cummings said. "Since then, there's been some positive signs, some very disappointing signs. But fundamentally, purgatory. He was leaving us all wondering where the administration will ultimately end up."

Representatives of the department did not return a request for comment.

But in a statement, Kevin Slagle, a spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association, said that a ban on federal leasing would put people out of work.

"We cannot speculate on what the Biden Administration may or may not do," Slagle said. "However, the last thing we can afford to do is shut down or artificially limit oil and gas production. We need access to safe, affordable and reliable energy for people and communities and to protect our path to economic recovery. A federal ban on federal leasing and development would shift the U.S. away from domestic energy to foreign energy sources and put nearly one million people out of work. In California, about 8% of our oil and gas production is on federally leased lands, most of it in Kern County and other parts of the San Joaquin Valley.