Lawsuit Aims to Defend Climate, Clean Air From Fracking in New Mexico’s Permian Basin

Conservation groups, led by citizens from Carlsbad, N.M., filed suit today to overturn the Biden administration’s approval of nearly 6,000 acres of oil and gas leases in southeast New Mexico’s Permian Basin.

Originally authorized by the Trump administration, the challenged leases were sold just days before President Biden took office and announced a pause on new federal oil and gas leasing to protect the climate. In spite of Biden’s promise, the U.S. Interior Department formally approved the Trump-era leasing on May 12, 2021.

By auctioning these lands, the Interior Department handed the industry the right to extract and produce oil and gas, opening the door for massive amounts of climate and air pollution. In spite of this, the agency refused to disclose the costs of more oil and gas development and to take steps to limit or even prevent new development to protect people and communities.

“Those of us living in Carlsbad continue to be alarmed by our ever-degrading air quality and environment in the region,” said Kayley Shoup with Citizens Caring for the Future. “Any direction you look in southeast New Mexico your eyes will be met with rigs, flares and pollution at a mass scale. This devastation can even be seen in space as NASA has recently identified a super-emitting site mere miles from Carlsbad. Unmitigated oil and gas production on public lands here in New Mexico has already taken away our health and has stifled our ability to nurture industries such as agriculture. We see leasing out our public lands for years to come as a direct attack on our ability to build a viable economy in our region in the future. A future where the curtain will inevitably be drawn on oil and gas production once and for all.”

“Oil and gas companies are extracting record profits while outsourcing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions to the public,” said Rose Rushing, a Farmington-based attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center. “The most marginalized communities in New Mexico are usually the most affected by the oil and gas industry’s toxic legacy in our backyards, and also stand to suffer the most from climate change. Frontline communities are being forced to pay for oil and gas extraction with our health and climate stability. The science is clear: We must stop drilling for oil and gas if we are going to avert catastrophic climate change.”

Today’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New Mexico, challenges the Biden administration’s decision to uphold the Trump-era leases. It targets the administration’s failure to address the harm from expanded oil and gas extraction to the climate and regional air quality.

“By going forward full steam with the January lease sale, the Bureau of Land Management is in violation of its moral and ethical responsibility for the common good and land trust stewardship, foundational to the agency,” said Sister Joan Brown of New Mexico/El Paso Interfaith Power and Light. “The Bureau must take seriously its responsibility to reduce climate pollution, health risks, and address care for the sacred lands in New Mexico.”

Oil and gas extraction in the Permian Basin, one of the world’s largest oil producing regions, is a huge source of air pollution and has fueled a surge in smog in the region, especially in the town of Carlsbad. It’s also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Oil and gas in the Permian is a huge source of potent methane gas and when it’s burned it releases massive amounts of carbon.

Recent reports indicate that unchecked fracking in the Permian Basin will unleash more than 55 billion metric tons of carbon by 2050, exhausting 10% of the global carbon budget needed to limit worldwide average temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“While it’s shameful President Biden is not living up to his promise to pause new oil and gas leasing to protect the climate, it’s even more shameful he’s rubberstamped Trump-era leases,” said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians. “For the climate, we have to stop selling our public lands out to the oil and gas industry.”

Several analyses show climate pollution from the world’s already producing fossil fuel developments, if fully developed, will push warming past 1.5 degrees Celsius. Avoiding such warming requires ending new investment in fossil fuel projects and phasing out production to keep as much as 40% of already-developed fields in the ground.

“Any expansion of fracking leases belies climate science and promises more harm to frontline communities and endangered animals like lesser prairie chickens,” said Taylor McKinnon at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This lawsuit will hold the Biden administration accountable to its own climate, environmental justice and biodiversity goals.”

In 2022 the Biden administration agreed to reconsider millions of acres of oil and gas leases approved by the Trump administration. That agreement, however, did not include the leases sold in New Mexico in January 2021.