Opinion ID: 148925
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Administrative Background

Text: During the late 1990s, federal lessees proposed drilling about 23,900 new coal bed methane gas wells in the Powder River Basin over a ten-year period. Lessees Supp.App. (LSA) at 224, 262-63. Without new federal drilling, nonfederal drilling would cause severe federal royalty losses by reducing reservoir pressure and siphoning federal gas. Id. at 12, 157-59. To consider the proposal, the Bureau agreed to prepare an environmental impact statement analyzing amending the Basin's resource management plan. See 65 Fed. Reg. 38571 (June 21, 2000); 65 Fed.Reg. 38572 (June 21, 2000). As well as evaluating the lessees' plan, the statement would study other proposed development plans that met the Bureau's project criteria. Eligible plans first had to describe different ways for the Bureau to provide federal minerals to meet the nation's energy needs and to facilitate the protection of the financial interest of the United States by preventing drainage of federal minerals in the project area. LSA at 263, 266, 282. Alternatives also needed to identify mitigation measures to address issues and conditions of approval, to assess leasing in other areas, and to review the existing management plan. Id. at 266. Studying these alternatives would provide the basis to analyze and disclose the impacts of the level of development proposed by the lessees. Id. at 266.
At this time, the groups requested that the Bureau consider phased development as an alternative to the lessees' plan. Id. at 596-630. Phased development, as the groups defined it, clusters drilling geographically to maintain open areas. Aplt. Br. at 14-15, 27; LSA at 599, 603-04. Drilling also proceeds a coal seam at a time. LSA at 599, 603-04. Developers reclaim each site to a pastoral landscape before drilling in a new site. Id. at 604. Phased development necessarily delays most drilling for 10 years to decades or longer. Id. The groups admitted that their plan may allow other developers to drain federal minerals. Id. at 605. But they suggested that the Bureau could reduce its drainage losses through compensation agreements, protective wells, compensatory royalties, unitization, and state coordination. Id. at 605-606.
The Bureau's final environmental impact statement studied in detail several alternative development plans, including a no-action alternative. Id. at 217-18, 224. But the Bureau refused to give phased development detailed study. Among the Bureau's six reasons for dropping the plan was that phased development would not meet the project's purposes. Id. at 342, 367. One group, the Wyoming Outdoor Council, protested this decision. Id. at 471-515.
The Bureau incorporated the final environmental impact statement into its 2003 Record of Decision. In itself, the new resource management plan permitted no on-the-ground activities. LSA at 385. Instead it required new site-specific NEPA analyses and approvals before any development began. Id. It also required lessees to comply with mitigation requirements. Id. at 385, 390-393.