Tell the Bureau of Land Management: Stop exploiting public lands for Big Oil profit!

Fires are blazing across California, Oregon, and Washington. The news is filled with images of orange haze and a post-apocalyptic landscape. Trees torched, buildings burned to the ground, and air so thick you can barely see through it.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plans to offer thousands of acres of land in Kern Co. California for oil and gas drilling -- adding to climate chaos.

Comments

To whom it may concern:

I urge the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to cancel oil and gas lease sales on all 7 parcels being proposed for auction on California’s federal public lands. These sales are moving forward based on a flawed Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) and deficient Environmental Assessment (EA) that seriously underestimate the adverse impacts these sales will have on local communities and the environment. For the following reasons, all lease sales included in this EA should not proceed until the BLM addresses these concerns.

Leasing more land for oil and gas development near communities of color that are already disproportionately burdened with air and water pollution perpetuates environmental racism. This EA fails to properly analyze air quality impacts in what is already one of the most heavily polluted counties in the nation because it relies on the same faulty data from BLM’s original SEIS. Alongside the runaway oil and gas and other industrial development already taking place in Kern County, cumulative impacts from opening more federal public lands up to new leasing will be devastating for local residents and the environment. Moreover, both water quality and quantity are significantly threatened by additional leasing that would occur under this EA. Communities within the leasing area already suffer from poor water quality, and nearby communities have seen their wells go dry in recent years.

Leasing also poses a grave threat to our environment. Currently, California, Oregon, and Washington are on fire. We are already experiencing the devastating effects of climate change and adding more fossil fuel infrastructure will drastically impact the climate crisis we are continuing to face. The EA has not adequately considered the cumulative consequences that additional oil and gas drilling will inevitably have on greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, the BLM itself acknowledges that endangered species within the leasing area, such as the San Joaquin kit fox, California condor, giant kangaroo rat, and California jewelflower may all be affected by oil drilling on the parcels for sale. Nevertheless, this EA has failed to fully account for the impacts that oil drilling on these parcels will have for surrounding wildlife. The parcels up for sale include a site that poses grave danger to Carrizo Plain, one of California’s most beloved national monuments. Numerous national parks and Class I wilderness areas, including Kings Canyon, Sequoia, and Yosemite National Parks, as well as the San Raphael, Ansel Adams, Domeland, and John Muir Wilderness could be impacted by cumulative haze pollutants from this and future lease sales.

The BLM has failed to adequately evaluate significant and adverse impacts of drilling,fracking, and other modes of extraction on local communities and the environment. Because the BLM relies on faulty assumptions included in the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement that is currently being litigated, this Environmental Assessment should be shelved along with all proposed lease sales in the Bakersfield Planning Region.

Thank you for considering my opinion,
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