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CONSERVATION GROUPS’ COMMENTS <br />UNCOMPAHGRE FIELD OFFICE RMP AND DEIS <br />27 <br />lands.”80 We have scoured the MLA and found no such provision. If BLM believes that such a <br />provision exists, we request that it provide a citation for the public to review as soon as possible. <br /> <br />BLM may have been alluding to a provision of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Section <br />363) that bears resemblance to the draft EIS’s language, but that provision is inapplicable for <br />numerous reasons. The Energy Policy Act provision directs the Secretaries of Agriculture and <br />Interior to “enter into a memorandum of understanding [MOU] regarding oil and gas leasing” on <br />BLM and Forest Service lands, and states that the MOU “shall include provisions that … ensure <br />that lease stipulations are …only as restrictive as necessary to protect the resource for which the <br />stipulations are applied.”81 This provision, on its face, is inapplicable to coal leasing. Further, it <br />relates to “lease stipulations,” which assumes, first, that the land has been open to leasing under <br />the applicable land management plan. And the MOU itself appears to be aimed at ensuring <br />consistency of stipulations where leased lands cross BLM and Forest Service boundaries. Thus <br />even if the draft EIS meant to invoke this provision, it is not a basis for failing to provide full <br />consideration to the no-leasing alternative(s) in a resource management plan revision. <br /> <br />In sum, none of the justifications BLM provides for rejecting consideration of the no- <br />leasing alternative is supported by fact or law. BLM therefore must consider in detail alternatives <br />that bar new leasing in the Uncompahgre area. <br />4. BLM Cannot Forego Analysis of a “No-Leasing” Alternative for Coal <br />by Instead Relying on the Programmatic EIS. <br /> <br />BLM’s press release announcing the draft EIS’s availability raises the specter that the <br />agency will argue that the draft EIS need not discuss reducing the level of coal production or <br />coal leasing because the proposed programmatic EIS on the federal coal program will address <br />those issues. Any implication that the Uncompahgre RMP cannot consider or adopt an <br />alternative that limits coal leasing is incorrect. <br /> <br />The press release first disclaims that the RMP will impact coal production, stating that <br />“the plans do not authorize any specific leases or mining operations; any new coal leases would <br />require environmental reviews specific to the particular lease application.”82 While it is true that <br />coal leasing will require additional environmental review beyond that for the RMP, the RMP <br />makes the initial, and arguably most significant, decision about coal leasing: whether the public <br />lands are open to coal leasing and production at all. If the RMP closes the planning area to coal <br />leasing, there will be no need for further environmental review. <br /> <br /> 80 Id. 81 42 U.S.C. § 15922(b)(3)(C). 82 BLM, BLM Releases Draft Management Plan for Land and Mineral Estate Managed by <br />Uncompahgre Field Office in Southwest Colorado (May 27, 2016) at 2, available at: <br />http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/co/field_offices/uncompahgre_field/rmp/rmp_draft_docs <br />_2.Par.5016.File.dat/BLM%20Uncompahgre%20RMP%20press%20release%205-27-16.pdf <br />(attached as Exhibit 27).