A federal judge in Idaho has vacated the lease sales of nearly a million acres of public land from 2018, including large tracts in Wyoming. If expected appeals fail, the decision could force the Bureau of Land Management and western states, including the State of Wyoming, to return millions of dollars in revenue.

The decision follows continuing litigation from environmental groups that claim that Department of Interior officials improperly amended and deviated from a collaborative 2015 sage grouse conservation plan; that plan was aimed at keeping the bird from being listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Western Watersheds Project and The Center for Biological Diversity sued, claiming a 2018 Department of Interior Instruction Memorandum directing the BLM to “simplify and streamline the leasing process” and “alleviate unnecessary impediments and burdens to expedite the offering of lands for lease” violated the public’s ability to participate in the process.

U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Ronald E. Bush agreed, writing in his Thursday decision that the BLM “inescapably intended to reduce and even eliminate public participation in the future decision-making process.”

Wyoming and the Western Energy Alliance argued against the suit. Gov. Mark Gordon responded to the decision with accusations of “judicial activism.”

“It is one thing to determine the validity of the use of an Instructional Memorandum, but the remedy issued by the Idaho judge is extreme, impractical and unworkable,” Gordon said in a statement. “The millions in bonus bids received by the State of Wyoming, to date, are already incorporated into state budgets and programs. Oil and gas companies have already invested time and money in preparation and development of the leases.”

One of the particular points of contention was the BLM reducing the period for lease protests from 30 to 10 days.

Conservation organization representatives argued the shortening of the comment period made it impossible to study the issue before responding. Wyoming Wilderness Association Community Organizer Shaleas Harrison, formerly of Powell, said in a July 2018 declaration to the court that she needed to bring a lot of information to BLM’s attention because the Environmental Assessment was a “rushed, poor-quality, uninformative document.”

“I simply couldn’t do an adequate job to provide the full look at the environmental consequences that the BLM needs to have before they make final decisions on where leasing should occur,” Harrison said.

The discussion is important, she said, due to the impact of the sales. “A compromised landscape is compromised forever.”

However, in arguing the case for the State of Wyoming, Senior Assistant Attorney General Erik Peterson argued that the BLM can shorten its comment periods from one administation to another. Peterson also contended that the advocacy groups’ objection to the 10-day comment period was “if I had more time, I could have said more.”

“There is no doubt that some of the Advocacy Groups’ declarants could produce a multi-volume treatise longer than Churchill’s ‘History of the English Speaking Peoples’ solely on the topic of how the Bureau [of Land Management] could have done things better, if only he or she had the time. But that is not the test,” Peterson wrote in an August 2019 filing.

Peterson said the groups had the opportunity to protest the leases and did.

“Moreover, they have not shown that, if they had more time, they would have introduced any evidence that would have presented a seriously different picture than the one the Bureau already had,” Peterson said.

However, his arguments did not persuade Judge Bush.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs celebrated the ruling. Talasi Brooks, staff attorney for Western Watersheds Project, said “the court wasn’t fooled by the agency’s efforts to disguise its intention to provide greater influence to extractive energies. Sage grouse and 350 other sagebrush-dependent species will benefit from today’s win.”

Taylor McKinnon, a senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, called it “a win for millions of acres of our beautiful public lands and a major blow to the Trump administration’s corrupt efforts to serve corporate polluters.”

Brian Rutledge, a member of Wyoming’s Sage-grouse Implementation Task Force and adviser for the Audubon Society, said the decision is due to the Trump administration attempting to play “fast and loose” with regulations.

“They’re like kids in school trying to hide a cheat sheet and the teacher keeps catching them,” Rutledge said.

He also said the lease of tracts in prime sage grouse habitat may be an intentional effort to get the species listed so they can “use the listing to attack” the Endangered Species Act.

The BLM’s first quarter lease sales, set to go up for auction later this month, includes a tract near Clark with an active lek, according to stipulations in the sales brochure. June sales in Park County includes more land near Clark and Meeteetse. Huge tracts are also being sold east of Worland in the second quarter listings.

Other ongoing litigation about BLM leases in sage grouse habitat could theoretically jeopardize more recent lease sales — if other judges were to similarly side with the environmental groups.

In December, the BLM leased roughly 173,000 acres in Wyoming for development — including nearly 38,000 acres in Park County.