NM Oil & Gas Lease Sale Comment Period Open!

Photograph of the inside of Carlsbad Caverns

Comment Period Open for Upcoming New Mexico Oil and Gas Lease Sale

Comments due: June 11

Hi Friend,

The scoping information for the New Mexico Bureau of Land Management Quarter 1 2026 Oil and Gas Lease Sale is now available. According to the website and documents, the Bureau of Land Management is analyzing 30 parcels, totaling 20,359 acres. Comments are due by Wednesday, June 11.

Paige has prepared a screen showing conflicts between the proposed parcels and important wildlife, wilderness, and other resources values including:

Parcels in the Brantley Wildlife Area,
Parcels on lands within 10 miles of Carlsbad Caverns National Park,
Parcels in priority habitat for terrestrial species of economic and recreational importance, other habitat for terrestrial species of economic and recreational importance,
Parcels within an area identified as a priority corridor region for pronghorn and multi-species, and
Parcels within the Human-powered Recreation Footprint 1/4-mile buffer.

An interactive map showing the parcels and selected conflicts is available here: https://rockymountainwild.org/oil_and_gas/new_mexico.

Please take a moment and send your comments to the Bureau of Land Management, asking them to protect the wildlife and wild lands in this region by removing affected areas from the proposed parcels list. Comments must be submitted through the link provided under the "Participate Now" section of the Farmington Field Office and Carlsbad Field Office ePlanning pages (it can take a couple of minutes to load, but will be in green in the navigation).

To date, we have helped defer more than 3 million acres of public land from oil and gas development! Together, we can save even more.

Additional Resources:

Oil & Gas Toolkit - including a guide from our Senior Conservation Biologist, Megan Mueller, on how to write technical comments about impacts to plan and animal species. Check it out under "Writing comments and Protects" here
Virtual Event Recording: Oil and Gas Lease Sale Comment Writing Workshop
BLM seeks input for November 2025 sale of oil and gas leases in New Mexico and Oklahoma press release
New Mexico Oil and Gas Lease Sales webpage

For the wild!
Photo of Chris surrounded by their illustrations of a bighorn sheep, black-footed ferret, hoary bat, boreal toad, Canada lynx, and Gunnison sage-grouse

Chris Talbot (they/them)
Communications Director, Leadership Team
Rocky Mountain Wild

P.S. RMW scopes each and every oil and gas lease sale in our region. Help fund this important work with a one-time or monthly donation here.

Header: View of the big room at Carlsbad Caverns, courtesy of BevoStevo, CC BY-ND 2.0.