THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY
COALITION TO PROTECT AMERICA’S NATIONAL PARKS
NEW MEXICO WILD
ROCKY MOUNTAIN WILD
September 4, 2026
SUBMITTED VIA E-PLANNING
Gera Ashton
Acting State Director for BLM New Mexico
U.S. Bureau of Land Management
301 Dinosaur Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87508
Project Contacts:
Nathan Combs
nc****@*lm.gov
(505) 954-2110
Cody Mccullah
cm*******@*lm.gov
(505) 954-2027
Re: Scoping Comments on Parcels for the New Mexico Bureau of Land Management First Quarter 2027 Competitive Oil & Gas Lease Sale (DOI-BLM- NM-F010-2026-0077-EA)
Summary
The Wilderness Society, Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, New Mexico Wild, and Rocky Mountain Wild submitted comments to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) regarding its proposed First Quarter 2027 competitive oil and gas lease sale. BLM is considering 13 parcels totaling 3,904 acres in New Mexico, along with two additional parcels in Oklahoma. The groups urge the agency to meet its obligations to protect public lands, wildlife, water, communities, and other resources before deciding which parcels should be offered for leasing.
The comments call on BLM to defer parcels where oil and gas leasing would conflict with important conservation values. These include parcels overlapping priority big-game habitat and migration areas, lesser prairie-chicken habitat, lands with low oil and gas development potential, and areas containing sensitive cave and karst resources. Several of the parcels are within 10 miles of Carlsbad Caverns National Park, raising concerns about interconnected cave systems, groundwater contamination, induced seismicity, dark skies, scenic resources, and the region’s recreation and tourism economy.
The organizations also argue that BLM must fully analyze the environmental consequences of leasing under the National Environmental Policy Act, including greenhouse-gas and climate impacts, groundwater risks from drilling and hydraulic fracturing, methane emissions from venting, flaring and leaks, and impacts on public health. They maintain that this analysis must occur before leasing rather than being postponed until individual drilling permits are considered.
The comments further challenge BLM’s reliance on the federal government’s declared “national energy emergency” and Instruction Memorandum 2025-028, which the groups contend improperly limits BLM’s ability to defer environmentally sensitive parcels and consider a reasonable range of alternatives. They also ask BLM to disclose whether artificial intelligence is being used in reviewing comments or other parts of the leasing process and, if so, to explain how those tools are being used.
Read the full letter here.