CRAIG, CO – The Bureau of Land Management’s Little Snake Field Office announced today that it will be closing Vermillion Basin to future oil and gas leasing. The decision comes as part of the ongoing revision of the BLM’s Resource Management Plan for the Little Snake Resource Area in Northwest Colorado.

WASHINGTON, DC — New oil and gas leasing reforms announced today by the Department of the Interior represent a significant improvement for how the Bureau of Land Management will conduct its onshore oil and gas leasing program for public lands.

BLM Agrees to Change National Policy and Restrict Use of Loophole That Led to Drilling

SALT LAKE CITY – A coalition of historic preservation and conservation groups announced yesterday that they settled a lawsuit with the Bureau of Land Management filed in the summer of 2008 challenging the BLM’s approval of 30 natural gas wells in the Nine Mile Canyon region of Utah.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — This afternoon Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced the first of eight regional science centers in the United States called for in his September 14, 2009 Secretarial Order on Climate Change. The following statement can be attributed to David Moulton, Director of Climate Policy & Conservation Funding for The Wilderness Society:

LOS ANGELES — Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced legislation today to preserve the spectacular heritage of the California desert by creating two new National Monuments and expanding Joshua Tree and Death Valley National Parks and the Mojave National Preserve. The bill would establish new wilderness areas in Death Valley National Park and on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the US Forest Service. Finally, the legislation would also establish a permitting process for all renewable energy projects on BLM land.