Educating Against Oil & Gas
Oil and Gas Leasing on Our Public Lands - UPDATE
Trump plan to allow drilling near US world heritage site sparks alarm
Aug 20, 2026
The Trump administration’s push to expand oil and gas extraction across the US is set to bring drilling near cherished natural and cultural sites, raising alarm among conservationists and prompting questions from the UN’s heritage body.
Unesco said it had received information on the administration’s plan to scrap a drilling-free buffer zone around the Chaco Culture national historical park in New Mexico, a world heritage site and one of the most important cultural areas in the US. A Unesco spokesperson said it had procedures regarding “potential threats” to a world heritage property and was awaiting a response from the federal government as to its impact.
Land commissioner eyes plan to keep ban on drilling state lands near Chaco
Aug 13, 2026
Banning new oil and gas leasing on nearly 73,000 acres of state trust land around Chaco Culture National Historic Park was one of the first acts Stephanie Garcia Richard took after she was elected state land commissioner.
It may also be one of her last.
The term-limited commissioner, who is running alongside Deb Haaland as the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, is working on a proposal to ensure the restrictions she imposed on new oil and gas extraction on state lands within 10 miles of the sacred site won’t be reversed “at the whim of another commissioner.”
Luján, Neguse Introduce Legislation to Safeguard Local Input on Public Lands Oil and Gas Leases
Jul 23, 2026
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and U.S. Representative Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) introduced the Local Input Act. This bicameral bill seeks to protect the right of local communities to provide input into proposed oil and gas lease sales on national public lands and would restore the Department of the Interior’s discretion to incorporate public comments and defer nominated parcels that conflict with the public interest.
The bill’s introduction comes at a critical moment for the country, particularly for communities in the American West. Changes enacted by Congress in 2025 effectively stripped local communities, landowners, and state and local officials of a meaningful voice in leasing decisions on public lands by eliminating the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) authority to defer lease parcels even if legitimate conflicts are identified, including when proposed leases threaten water supplies, wildlife habitat, hunting and fishing, recreation, tourism, and cultural resources. The Department of the Interior is also currently proposing changes to the BLM’s oil and gas leasing rule that would further reduce public input in this process to a mere 10-day protest period.
NM US Rep. Stansbury, Native leaders vow to fight BLM proposal to undo Chaco Canyon protections
Source NM • Jul 17, 2026
U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) and Pueblo of Acoma Gov. Charles Riley on Friday said they’ll work together to fight the Trump administration’s proposal to scale back or completely remove a mining ban around Chaco Culture National Historical Park.
The Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday announced it was opening a two-week window for members of the public to send in their opinions on the proposal, which has three options for the spiritually and culturally significant site: remove the 10-mile buffer zone on mining operations; reduce it to five miles; or keep it intact.
Stansbury said the decision to limit public comment to two weeks without holding a public hearing on the matter signaled the administration wants to do the “bare minimum” to gather public feedback. She said she believes the move violates the federal Administrative Procedure Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
New Mexico modernizes oil, gas industry bonding, cleanup rules, now among nation’s strongest
Western Environmental Law Center • Jul 1, 2026
The New Mexico Oil Conservation Commission voted Wednesday to reform outdated oil and gas bonding and cleanup rules, adopting some of the strongest safeguards in the country to prevent orphan wells and ensure oil and gas corporations pay to clean up the wells they drill and operate.
“This decision comes down to the simple idea most New Mexicans agree on: If you drill it, you clean it,” said Tannis Fox, senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. “After a thorough, evidence-based process, the Commission acted to protect our water, our communities, and our state budget – ensuring the public isn’t left paying for industry’s messes.”
The Commission’s decision followed months of hearings, expert testimony, legal briefing, and negotiations among parties. In its deliberations, the Commission largely affirmed the legal and evidentiary basis for modernizing New Mexico’s bonding system and adopted most of the reforms included in the parties’ negotiated agreement, including reaffirming that HB80 complements, but does not replace, a modernized bonding system.
Trump officials to slash public input on fossil fuel drilling on federal lands
The Guardian • Jun 29, 2026
The Trump administration is attempting to shrink public comment periods for fossil fuel leasing on federal land while shifting the financial risks of cleanup to taxpayers and allowing for more planet-warming emissions. It’s part of a broader effort to dismantle public input processes and save polluting companies money, advocates say.
“By ignoring public comment [requirements] while propping up companies,” said Alexa Dietrich, research director at the science advocacy organization Union of Concerned Scientists, “they’re really attacking democracy in a very clear way.”
The interior department said this week it wants to loosen two Biden-era regulations governing oil and gas drilling on national public lands. One would dramatically lower the fees that firms must pay for future cleanup costs before drilling; the second could allow companies to release more methane, a potent planet-warming pollutant.
The changes would also mean the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) – part of the interior department – would no longer be required to assess whether swaths of land proposed for oil and gas leasing have high potential for conflict with other resources such as wildlife habitat. And the proposal would slash the public’s ability to weigh in on oil and gas permitting.
Local Opinions on Oil and Gas Leasing on Our Public Lands
- Choose a permanent solution to protecting Chaco
Melinda Hall
July 31, 2026 - Trump’s attack on Chaco is unacceptable
Stephanie Garcia Richard
July 22, 2026 - It’s up to citizens to speak out for public land protection
Santa Fe New Mexican
July 18, 2026
What is Fracking?
The Dangers of Fracking
- Depletes local fresh water supplies, 3-5 million gallons required per fracking well.
- Uses highly toxic chemicals that have been scientifically linked to infertility, birth defects and cancer.
- Produces massive amounts of toxic wastewater that leak chemicals into ground and water.
- Releases gases from fracking chemicals that create poisonous air pollution.
- Disrupts communities by increasing noise pollution, traffic and over-stressing infrastructure.
- Drilling accidents, explosions and fires put workers and residents at risk.
- Lowers property values and raises mortgage financing and insurance rates and requirements.
- Destabilizes bedrock and increases earthquake activity.
Hydraulic Fracturing aka Fracking is a process of blasting pressurized chemical-laced water and sand underground in order to break apart rock layers to release fossil fuels.
- First a well is drilled straight down into the earth. Then the drilling takes a 90 degree turn and then carves out a wagon wheel of horizontal channels into the deeper shale formations.
- Next, millions of gallons of highly chemicalized liquid is injected at enormous pressure into the well and the channels, “fracturing” the shale rock. Trapped fossil fuel (oil/gas) is freed and flows into the production well for extraction.
- Millions of gallons of chemically-laced wastewater is produced and either stays underground or spews up to the surface for holding in pits or for “treatment”.
Fracking also releases large amounts of methane, a dangerously potent greenhouse gas. Fracked shale gas wells, for example, may have methane leakage rates as high as 7.9 percent.
Fracking and the Rio Chama Watershed
How would fracking for oil and gas impact our watershed?
Excerpt from Thinking Like the Rio Chama Watershed by Barbara Turner. Illustrations by Julie Wagner.
Because the geology of our watershed, in particular the geologic layer called the Morrison Formation, has not been thoroughly studied by the Bureau of Land Management, the exact repercussions of Shallow Shale Hydraulic Fracturing (commonly referred to as fracking) within the watershed are unknown. It makes sense that we would want to know, in detail, the impact of an action on our relatively pristine watershed before that action is taken. And since we are the “gatekeepers” to this precious resource of water as it flows for use to the southern part of the state, we have a profound obligation to be skeptical of anything that would limit or damage it.
Oil and gas is an industry that can come into operation in an area zoned for agriculture and is not required to have the zoning changed. These same companies can purchase water rights when leasing land for fracking.
Federal Government Review Says Chances of Oil and Gas in the Rio Chama Watershed are Low to an Uncertain Moderate
In September 2014 the Federal Government Bureau of Land Management released a comprehensive Geologic Review by Joseph R. Hewitt, concluding that the potential for Oil and Gas in the Rio Chama Watershed (Chama Basin) was LOW in the Southern part, to MODERATE in the North.The MODERATE determination was, however, accompanied by “a C level of confidence…Of the “132 wells drilled since 1915, 12 wells have reported production”.
In other words, the natural wonderland that is the Rio Chama Watershed is on the record as unlikely to produce any real promise or revenues from Oil and Gas.
The governmental report contains many linguistic examples of an established, swashbuckling “resource-hunting” tradition.
There is mention of “rank wildcat wells”, “oil and gas traps”, “dry holes” and “oil shows from test wells”. The colorful prose of huntin’ and gamblin’ has crept into the very culture and “governmental scientific analysis” of hydrocarbon potential.
When an Oil and Gas Company goes in to drill the earth for exploration or extraction of hydrocarbons, this is called a “PLAY”. The verb is so interesting given its light-hearted, often child-related connotation within the context of Fracking. AKA, potentially cracking open the Earth and injecting millions of gallons of known toxic chemicals.
Please do read the Hewitt “Geologic Review of the Oil and Gas Potential” in the Rio Chama Watershed.
You will see that the spirit of “Gaming” is very much implicit in any analysis or exploration and drilling for Oil and Gas. Even the Oil Guy knows that the earth can hide its treasures, secrets and disappointments from men and it’s all a gamble in the end.
Fortunately, the Geology of the Watershed has been assessed as relatively unpromising. Thanks to the Great Spirit of this Land, the odds are against destroying millions of years of natural beauty for some climate-change producing hydrocarbons.
The Alternatives
Excerpt from Thinking Like the Rio Chama Watershed by Barbara Turner. Illustrations by Julie Wagner.
If we are truly “thinking like the Rio Chama Watershed”, we will want to keep informing ourselves about how the watershed works, what it needs from us to be healthy, and how we can protect it from misuse. The confluence of cultures operating in our watershed is profoundly beneficial because diverse and creative approaches to managing the watershed only increase our chances of succeeding in protecting this precious water resource. Supporting local farmers and acequia associations in their efforts to sustain all of us within the watershed is essential. Mitigation of non-point sources of pollution from grazing, fertilizing and logging by informed, local, land-based residents seems like a viable solution to a lot of the watershed’s non-point pollution problems. And with a new wastewater treatment plant scheduled for Chama, we can hope for an even more pristine watershed to protect.
Fracking is a potentially devastating industry that we are facing but there will be other challenges in the future that will need our attention. “Thinking like a watershed” will help us face these challenges with our community spirit and our knowledge of the watershed guiding us.
That green ribbon of beauty tracing its bloodlines through the watershed is ours to protect as we depend on it to continue to provide the “lifeblood of the land”.
Help us keep this beautiful land and water pristine for another 100 million years.