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HR 230 119th Congress House Public Lands and Natural Resources Administrative law and regulatory procedures Climate change and greenhouse gases Coal Department of the Interior Mining Wyoming

To prohibit the implementation of the Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment for the Buffalo, Wyoming Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management.

Introduced: January 7, 2025 Introduced by: Hageman, Harriet M. Republican · Wyoming See on congress.gov
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 Everywhere this bill has been 2 steps
Introduced
In committee
Reported out
Passed House
Passed Senate
To President
Became law
Jan 7, 2025
Referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources.
Jan 7, 2025
Introduced in House
 Plain-English summary Congressional Research Service

This bill prohibits the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from implementing, administering, or enforcing its 2024 Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment for its Buffalo Field Office in Wyoming. The field office manages 780,291 acres of public lands and 4,731,140 acres of mineral estates within Campbell, Johnson, and Sheridan Counties in north-central Wyoming.

In 2015, the BLM published a management plan for the field office that allowed leases of certain public lands or mineral estates within the office's planning area for the development of coal. 

In 2018, the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana in Western Organization of Resource Councils v. Bureau of Land Management ordered the BLM to complete a new environmental impact statement (EIS) for the management plan under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, which requires an agency to include all reasonable alternatives to its action and the environmental impacts resulting from the action. Specifically, the court ordered the BLM to issue an EIS that considers an alternative of not leasing coal under the management plan as well as an alternative that limits the amount of coal potentially available for leasing.

In response to the court order, the BLM published an amendment to the plan on November 27, 2024. The amended plan made no acres within the office's planning area available for future coal leasing in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, it allowed existing coal leases to be developed.

What's happening now January 7, 2025

Referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources.