NM Oil & Gas Lease Sale Comment Period Open!

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

Comments due: November 25

Hi Friend,

The EA information for the New Mexico Bureau of Land Management May 2025 Oil and Gas Lease Sale is now available. According to the website and documents, the Bureau of Land Management is analyzing 3 parcels, totaling 1,261.44 acres. Comments are due by Monday, November 25.

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

Parcels in other habitat for terrestrial species of economic and recreational importance
Parcels within an area identified as a priority corridor region for pronghorn

Two parcels, NM-2025-05-0472 and NM-2025-05-6849, are in areas identified in Bureau of Land Management published Reasonable Foreseeable Development Scenario Documents as having low potential for oil and gas development. Both parcels are surrounded by active development including 14 active wells within 1 miles of the parcels (with some closer than 1/4 mile) and plugged wells within the boundaries of the proposed parcels.

An interactive map showing the parcels and selected conflicts is available here: https://rockymountainwild.org/oil_and_gas/new_mexico. More information about this and other sales is available in the Upcoming Lease Sale Tracker Google Sheet.

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 (it can take a couple of mintues 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
May 2025 Competitive Oil and Gas Lease e-planning website
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-Heindl (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: Three pronghorn in Cimarron, New Mexico, courtesy of Larry Lamsa (CC BY 2.0)