Environmental Review of Drilling Applications

✍ Scribed by Sullivan, Mary Anne

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2008
• Weight: 340 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0743-5665
• DOI: 10.1002/gas.3410080411

✦ Synopsis

For more than twenty years, the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act have been in place, requiring federal agencies to take a hard look at the potential impacts of any "major federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.'' After all this time, one might expect that the rules for complying with NEPA would be pretty well established, particularly for oil and gas development, and that the agencies responsible for carrying out the mandates of the statute would have learned how to do so without being reversed by those who have the power to review such decisions.

Recent developments suggest otherwise, however.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has the authority in most cases to grant or deny applications for permits to drill (APDs) for oil and gas deposits on federal lands. Consideration of the environmental impacts of proposed drilling is a central element of BLM review of APDs.