Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's decision to cancel 77 disputed federal oil and gas leases in Utah has left a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Interior Department in a holding pattern.
On Thursday, Interior asked U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina for an indefinite timeout on the suit, which the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and 10 other conservation and historic-preservation organizations filed in December to stop a federal lease auction in Salt Lake City.
The request came a day after Salazar nullified the sale of the 77 parcels listed in the suit. The parcels cover 103,000 acres of public land near Arches and Canyonlands national parks, Dinosaur National Monument, Desolation Canyon and Nine Mile Canyon.
Salazar's move negated any need to argue against Urbina's Jan. 17 temporary restraining order that halted further BLM action on its Dec. 19 sale.
An Interior spokesman familiar with the court action did not return a call requesting comment.
SUWA isn't fighting Interior's request for more time, but isn't backing off either. "We're very eager to move ahead with the rest of the case," said staff attorney Steve Bloch.
On Tuesday, buoyed by Urbina's ruling and anticipating Salazar's announcement, SUWA and the other organizations broadened their lawsuit to directly challenge BLM resource-management plans for the Vernal, Moab and Price regions. The lawsuit demands further scrutiny of off-highway-vehicle travel, wild- and scenic-river designations, wilderness, climate change and other matters considered in the plans.
The December auction, set up under the Bush administration, has been under fire from conservationists, river runners, anglers, hunters, private property owners, members of Congress and the National Park Service since the Utah office of the BLM released the parcel list on Election Day, just two working days after releasing final resource-management plans crafted, in part, to enable the lease sale.
Salazar characterized the plans and the sale as rush jobs perpetrated in the waning days of the Bush administration, one of several "midnight actions" President Barack Obama aims to overturn.
America's Red Rock Wilderness Act sponsor, Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., and 74 other members of Congress pressed the Obama administration Thursday to defer future oil- and gas-lease sales near potential wilderness areas until the Interior and Agriculture departments could review Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service leasing and development practices.
