Court rejects BLM plans to mine 10 billion tons of coal, install thousands of oil and gas wells over 15 million acres in Powder River Basin

March 23, 2018: the federal district court in Montana ruled in favor of the Sierra Club and its allies in a key climate case. The court held that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) failed to accurately disclose the climate impacts of two BLM plans allowing massive amounts of fossil fuel production on more than 15 million acres of public lands in the Powder River Basin, which spans Montana and Wyoming. The decision marks the first time the Sierra Club has invalidated a BLM plan that directly affects the production of coal, oil, and gas together in the same legal challenge, and it offers another sharp rebuke to the Trump Administration's preference for using public lands and waters to benefit the fossil fuel industry. In the decision, the court held that BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by refusing to quantify the greenhouse gas emissions from the inevitable combustion of coal, oil, and gas produced under the plans. The court also directed BLM to consider an alternative that would keep Powder River Basin coal in the ground as a way to reduce climate impacts.