August 28, 2024
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUWA Lawsuit Challenges BLM’s Decision to Reaffirm Fossil Fuel Leases in the Heart of Congressionally Designated Wilderness – 8.28.24

Contacts:
Landon Newell, Staff Attorney, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (801) 428-3991 (landon@suwa.org)
Grant Stevens, Communications Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (319) 427-0260; grant@suwa.org

Salt Lake City, UT – Today, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Washington D.C. challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) recent decision to reaffirm controversial oil and gas leases in Utah’s wild, remote San Rafael Desert region including a lease within the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness. 

“The Trump administration wrote the playbook on how to make an uninformed, illegal leasing decision,” said Landon Newell, Staff Attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “Unfortunately, by reaffirming these leases—including in the heart of the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness—the Biden administration is blessing one of the Trump administration’s most controversial oil and gas leases.”

The San Rafael Desert is a sublime area of Utah’s backcountry encompassing the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness, which is bounded on the east by the Green River, and on the south by Canyonlands National Park and the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. The Labyrinth Canyon stretch of the Green River abuts the Wilderness and passes through Bowknot Bend on its way to the confluence with the Colorado River. This stretch of river is one of the most iconic in the United States and over 40 miles are designated as Scenic under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. 

Congress designated the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness on March 12, 2019, in the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act. The lease within the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness, which the Trump administration BLM rushed to issue as a last-minute handout to its industry allies only a few days before the Dingell Act was signed into law, is literally located in the heart of this wild landscape. The decision was so controversial that U.S. Senators objected to this last-minute fossil fuel giveaway arguing that development of the lease would “destroy [what] Congress sought to protect when it created the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness.”

In 2020, SUWA and other conservation partners challenged the BLM’s leasing decision and approval of a drilling project on the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness lease in federal court in Washington D.C. and initially stopped the drilling project, but the court eventually allowed the developement to proceed (the well was drilled and turned out to be a dry hole). 

This previous litigation was resolved by BLM agreeing to take a closer look at the prior administration’s leasing decision. This supplemental leasing analysis is the subject of SUWA’s new litigation. Rather than closely scrutinizing the prior leasing decision,  the BLM has rubberstamped it. They reaffirmed the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness lease (along with 50 others) and in doing so, endorsed future fossil fuel drilling in the heart of some of America’s most cherished public lands. 

SUWA’s latest litigation seeks an order from the court setting aside the BLM’s decision as unlawful and vacating the oil and gas leases. SUWA is represented by in-house attorneys and local counsel from the public interest law firm Eubanks & Associates, PLLC.

Resources:

• Court Filing of current litigation
• SUWA Map showing the location of the lease within the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness
• BLM Reaffirms Trump-Era Leases in Southern Utah; Including in Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness, May 30, 2024
• Photos of the area (called the Twin Bridge Helium Project) available for leasing can be found here. 
• Letter from US Senators calling on then Secretary Bernhardt to cancel the proposed leases (Dec. 21, 2020) 
• “In Last Rush, Trump Grants Mining and Energy Firms Access to Public Lands“ (New York Times, Dec. 19, 2020
• “Trump rolled back more than 125 environmental safeguards. Here’s how.” (Washington Post)
• Ending Trump’s transactional arrogance on our public lands (The Hill, Nov. 20 2020)

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The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters from around the country dedicated to protecting America’s redrock wilderness. From offices in Moab, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC, our team of professionals defends the redrock, organizes support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, and stewards this world-renowned landscape. Learn more at www.suwa.org.