Western Energy Alliance (WEA) and six companies have filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management, arguing that BLM failed to issue mineral leases to the top qualified bidders at competitive lease sales within 60 days of the date that the leases are paid for

摘要

In its suit, the Denver-based WEA said that under the Mineral Leasing Act, as amended by the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act of 1987, BLM must issue leases within 60 days following payment by a successful bidder of the remainder of the bonus bid, if any, and the annual rental for the first lease year. The six companies involved in the lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Wyoming, include Baseline Minerals, Double Deuce Land & Minerals, Nerd Gas, Wold Oil Properties, Laramie Energy II and Samson Resources. Four companies, Baseline, Double Deuce, Nerd and Wold, bid on 118 leases in sales in Wyoming and Utah from 2005 to the present; to date, no leases have been issued. The US Government Accountability Office, in a study of 2007-09 lease sales in four states, including Wyoming and Utah, found that 74% of competitively sold lease parcels were protested and that "a majority of leases [some 91%] for protested parcels were issued after the 60-day window specified in the Mineral Leasing Act." In Wyoming and Utah, the GAO found that BLM failed to issue leases for protested parcels within the 60-day period more than 91% of the time in Utah and "up to almost 100% in Wyoming." The GAO added that, according to BLM officials, as of May 2010, the agency was holding more than $84 million in industry payments for unissued leases in Wyoming and more than $10 million in Utah.