What does it mean to “protect” our public lands and water? Is any place off limits to development? As the Trump administration expands oil and gas development at dizzying rates across the country, these questions become harder to answer. Yet there is one category of public lands without any ambiguity: our national wildlife refuges.
There are over 500 national wildlife refuges across the country — from coastal marshes to deserts, forests and river corridors. Together, they protect nearly 100 million acres and form the nation’s only system of federal lands and waters dedicated principally to conserving fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats. These refuges are important spaces with specific legal guardrails in place to protect them.
But in northeastern Utah, a concerning trend is playing out as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is proposing to open approximately 5,200 acres of federal minerals beneath Ouray National Wildlife Refuge to new oil and gas development. We believe this proposal violates U.S. law and will set a dangerous national precedent for refuges across the country.
National Wildlife Refuges are Uniquely Protected as Havens for Wildlife Conservation
Federal regulations expressly prohibit new oil and gas leasing of land within the National Wildlife Refuge System. BLM nevertheless proposes to amend the Resource Management Plan that governs minerals in the area which includes Ouray National Wildlife Refuge.
There is a reason refuges are protected. Congress established the National Wildlife Refuge System to conserve wildlife. Since its inception, Congress mandated maintenance procedures to ensure the biological integrity, diversity and environmental health of the refuge system. Refuges provide important wildlife habitats, breeding grounds, migration stopovers and places where threatened and endangered species can recover. They exist to put wildlife conservation first.
Ouray is one of those places. In the high desert of northeastern Utah, where only about seven inches of rain fall each year, the Green River creates a ribbon of life through an otherwise arid landscape. Cottonwoods hug its banks. Wetlands provide an oasis for migrating birds.
More than 350 wildlife species use this patchwork of river, wetlands, grasslands and desert, including the threatened yellow-billed cuckoo and several endangered Colorado River fish species.
To be clear, oil and gas development is not entirely absent from the refuge system or from the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge itself. About 1,700 active wells exist on roughly 100 refuges nationwide. But most involve rights that predate the refuges or privately owned minerals the federal government does not control. Existing rights at Ouray were similarly carried over when the refuge was established.
BLM cannot legally use a Resource Management Plan amendment to authorize leasing that its own regulations prohibit.
BLM says drilling infrastructure would remain outside the refuge, with companies reaching the subsurface minerals through directional and horizontal drilling. But where a drill rig sits does not answer a fundamental question: Can these lands legally be leased at all? BLM must acknowledge this legal infraction before proceeding.
While the proposal at Ouray is unprecedented, it comes against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s much broader “energy dominance” agenda. From offshore waters to public lands across the West, the administration has embraced a “drill, baby, drill” approach aimed at opening more of America’s lands and waters to oil and gas development. Ouray takes that agenda into new and troubling territory — a national wildlife refuge — where federal regulations prohibit new oil and gas leasing.
Our national wildlife refuges play a significant role in the long and storied history of America’s journey to enshrine conservation. Their legal framework was designed specifically to create sanctuaries where wildlife and their habitat can thrive, and they were never intended to be an auctioning ground for the highest bidder.
What happens at Ouray matters far beyond 5,200 acres in northeastern Utah. If BLM can open federally owned minerals beneath a national wildlife refuge, Ouray could provide a roadmap for trying it elsewhere. A decision made here could reverberate across a system of more than 570 refuges.
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