Under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, as amended (FLPMA), BLM manages about 250 million acres of federal land for multiple uses, including recreation; range; timber; minerals; watershed; wildlife and fish; and natural scenic, scientific, and historical values, as well as for the sustained yield of renewable resources. In addition, the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 charges Interior with responsibility for oil and gas leasing on federal and private lands where the federal government has retained mineral rights. BLM is responsible for managing approximately 700 million mineral onshore acres, which include the acreage leased for oil and gas development. To manage its responsibilities, BLM administers its programs through its headquarters office in Washington, D.C.; 12 state offices; 45 district offices; and 128 field offices. BLM headquarters develops guidance and regulations for the agency, while the state, district, and field offices manage and implement the agency’s programs. Thirty BLM field offices, located primarily in the mountain West, were involved in oil and gas development. To drill for oil or natural gas on leased lands, a company must submit an APD to BLM. APDs are used to approve drilling and all related activities on land leased by a company, including road building; digging pits to store drilling effluent; placing pipelines to carry oil and gas to market; and building roads to transport equipment, personnel, and other production- related materials. After an APD is approved, operators can submit proposals to BLM, in the form of a sundry notice, for modifications to their approved APD. Sundry notices may involve activities like changing the location of a well, adding an additional pipeline, or adding remote communications equipment. Interior and BLM have administrative categorical exclusions in place for numerous types of activities, such as constructing nesting platforms for wild birds and constructing snow fences for safety. To use such an administrative categorical exclusion in approving a project on BLM land, the agency screens each proposed project for extraordinary circumstances, such as significant impacts to threatened and endangered species, historic or cultural resources, or human health and safety or potentially significant cumulative environmental effects when coupled with other actions. When one or more extraordinary circumstances exist, BLM guidance precludes staff from using an administrative categorical exclusion for the project. “(1) Individual surface disturbances of less than 5 acres so long as the total surface disturbance on the lease is not greater than 150 acres and site-specific analysis in a document prepared pursuant to NEPA has been previously completed. (2) Drilling an oil or gas well at a location or well pad site at which drilling has occurred previously within 5 years prior to the date of spudding the well. (3) Drilling an oil or gas well within a developed field for which an approved land use plan or any environmental document prepared pursuant to NEPA analyzed such drilling as a reasonably foreseeable activity, so long as such plan or document was approved within 5 years prior to the date of spudding the well. (4) Placement of a pipeline in an approved right-of-way corridor, so long as the corridor was approved within 5 years prior to the date of placement of the pipeline. (5) Maintenance of a minor activity, other than any construction or major renovation or [sic] a building or facility.” In its process for approving oil or gas projects, BLM’s original guidance provided that the agency can use a section 390 categorical exclusion when a project meets the conditions set forth for any of the five types of section 390 categorical exclusions. BLM guidance still directs staff to document their decision and rationale for using a specific section 390 categorical exclusion. Furthermore, BLM guidance directed its staff when using section 390 categorical exclusions to comply with the Endangered Species Act and the National Historic Preservation Act; to conduct on-site reviews for all APDs; and to add site-specific restrictions or conditions of approval if deemed necessary to protect the environment or cultural resources. In September 2009, we reported that 26 of the 30 field offices with oil and gas activities used almost 6,900 section 390 categorical exclusions to approve oil-and-gas-related activities from fiscal year 2006 through fiscal year 2008. Of these, BLM field offices used section 390 categorical exclusions to approve nearly 6,100 APDs (about 28 percent of approximately 22,000 federal wells approved by BLM) during this period. Three BLM field offices (Pinedale, Wyoming; Farmington, New Mexico; and Vernal, Utah) accounted for almost two-thirds of section 390 categorical exclusions used to approve APDs. Section 390 CX3 accounted for more than 60 percent of the section 390 categorical exclusions used to approve APDs. BLM also used section 390 categorical exclusions to approve more than 800 nondrilling projects from fiscal year 2006 through fiscal year 2008. These approvals were for a wide range of activities, such as changing a well location, adding new pipelines, and doing road maintenance. The Buffalo, Wyoming, field office was the most prominent user of section 390 categorical exclusions for these purposes, approving more than 250 nondrilling projects with section 390 categorical exclusions. The vast majority of BLM officials we spoke with told us that using section 390 categorical exclusions expedited the application review and approval process, but the amount of time saved by field offices depended on a variety of factors and circumstances influencing the extent to which field offices used the exclusions. A frequently cited factor contributing to these efficiency gains was the extent to which proposed projects fit the specific conditions set forth in each section 390 categorical exclusion. BLM officials also identified other factors that contributed to their ability to use section 390 categorical exclusions, including the field office resource specialists’ familiarity with the area of the proposed action, the area’s environmental sensitivity, the extent of the area’s cultural resources, and the proposed action’s extent of surface disturbance. Specifically, BLM officials told us that section 390 categorical exclusions were regularly used to approve projects in areas where sensitive environmental or cultural concerns were few (e.g., no threatened or endangered species, or limited cultural resources in the area), where the resource specialists were familiar with the location of the proposed action, or where the proposed project was not unusual or was likely to have minimal impact on the local environment. Additionally, field office policies could contribute to how often section 390 categorical exclusions were used. The differences in office policies result from field office managers’ comfort with the use of section 390 categorical exclusions and their interpretations of appropriate use. Because it is not always clear how oil and gas development would have proceeded in the absence of section 390 categorical exclusions, BLM officials told us that estimating the amount of time saved by using the exclusions was difficult. In field offices where section 390 categorical exclusions were seldom used to approve APDs or nondrilling actions, officials told us that a typical section 390 categorical exclusion approval document saved a few hours of total staff time. In contrast, in field offices where section 390 categorical exclusions were used more often, the time savings were cumulatively more significant, although officials could not quantify them. Officials in these field offices told us that while the savings for a single APD did not by itself mean that the APD was approved in fewer calendar days, the total number of APDs processed in the office in a given period was probably larger because of the cumulative time saved by using section 390 categorical exclusions. Industry officials with whom we spoke also agreed that BLM’s use of section 390 categorical exclusions had generally decreased APD- processing times and that this increased efficiency was more pronounced in some field offices than in others. Acknowledging that the type of development and the availability of NEPA documents were both critical factors, they also stressed that differences in field office policies, field office operations, and field management personalities generally influenced how readily a given BLM field office used section 390 categorical exclusions. For example, according to industry officials, some field offices were conservative and cautious and therefore reluctant to use section 390 categorical exclusions if even minimal environmental or cultural resource concerns existed. This tendency ran counter to what some industry officials told us was their interpretation of the law—namely, that they believed that section 390 categorical exclusions should be used whenever a project meets the required conditions. Industry officials told us that in some cases BLM was overly cautious in applying section 390 categorical exclusions, in part because BLM feared litigation from environmental groups. Industry officials commented on the lack of consistency among BLM field offices in how section 390 categorical exclusions were used but overall told us that section 390 categorical exclusions were a useful tool and have contributed to expedited application processing. They applauded the exclusions for reducing redundant and time-consuming NEPA documentation and making APD application processing more predictable and flexible. In September 2009, we reported that BLM’s field offices used section 390 categorical exclusions to approve oil and gas activities in violation of the law and also failed to follow agency guidance. Specifically, we found six types of violations of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and fives types of noncompliance with BLM guidance (see table 1). Overall, we found many more examples of noncompliance with guidance than violations of the law. We did not find intentional actions on the part of BLM staff to circumvent the law; rather, our findings reflected what appear to be honest mistakes stemming from confusion in implementing a new law with evolving guidance. Nevertheless, even though some of the violations of law—such as approving multiple wells with one decision document—were technical in nature, they must be taken seriously. In some instances, violations we found may have thwarted NEPA’s twin aims of ensuring that both BLM and the public were fully informed of the environmental consequences of BLM’s actions. For example, approval of multiple wells on one or more well pads could have required an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement, which would likely have provided additional information on the environmental impacts of approving multiple wells.