A federal agency is set to lease tens of thousands of acres in northwestern Colorado, an area critical for the nation’s largest elk herd for migration, foraging, and wintering, to oil and gas companies. This represents the state’s largest such sale in modern history.
The Bureau of Land Management’s June 16 sale includes more than 100 parcels that cover migration corridors for elk, pronghorn, and mule deer, extending into southern Wyoming. Many of these parcels are located in Moffat County, known as the “Elk Hunting Capital of the World,” which relies on hunting for economic stability.
Approximately two-thirds of the 156,000-acre lease sale is situated just south of Dinosaur National Monument, a remote park designated as one of the nation’s over 40 International Dark Sky Places, renowned for its exceptionally dark night skies. Moffat tourism officials, who reported a drop in inquiries by more than half this spring, are concerned that the bright lights and truck traffic from fossil fuel extraction could endanger this status.
“This could jeopardize our status,” warned Tom Kleinschnitz, the county’s tourism director. “It’s crucial to keep these areas as untouched as possible in the long run.”
The unprecedented June lease sale contrasts with the Bureau of Land Management’s stated approach for the national monument and the 2024 amendments to area plans in northwestern Colorado, which enhanced habitat protections for ungulates like elk and deer and at-risk birds such as the Gunnison sage-grouse.
The potential risks to large game and Dinosaur National Park are just some of the concerns for the environment, economy, and public health. A 2,360-line spreadsheet compiled by Denver-based nonprofit Rocky Mountain Wild lists 17 rare plants and endangered species whose habitats could be threatened by fossil fuel exploration and extraction.
These species include the black-footed ferret, wolverine, boreal toad, and Colorado pikeminnow, along with threatened plants such as the Colorado hookless cactus and Parachute penstemon. The lease sale also covers land used by species like the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse, greater sage-grouse, ferruginous hawk, and swift fox — all identified by state wildlife officers as being of special concern.
This June event is one of four major lease sales in Colorado since Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed a 2025 bill promoting drilling on public lands. This approach contrasts sharply with the leasing pattern during President Joe Biden’s term, which saw only six sales in Colorado over four years, offering just a few hundred acres.
The 2025 H.R. 1 legislation prioritized fossil fuel extraction over recreation and conservation, mandating at least four lease sales annually in various states. It also shortened public comment periods and reduced land managers’ discretion to decide whether to lease acreage.
The law also lowered oil and gas royalty rates, making fossil fuel extraction on public lands cheaper and reducing taxpayer revenue from these resources. Colorado alone could lose $148 million in revenue from future production on about 81,000 acres sold in 2026, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group.
The push to lease these vast areas comes amid bipartisan polling from Colorado College’s State of the Rockies Project, which found a majority of voters in eight Western states want their congressional representatives to focus more on conservation than energy development on public lands.
Currently, about 21 million acres of public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management are leased for oil and gas development, with only 12 million acres actively producing fossil fuels, according to fiscal 2025 statistics on the agency’s website.
This discrepancy highlights concerns from conservation groups that during the decade-long lease terms, these lands cannot be used for other purposes like sensitive habitat protection, wilderness preservation, or recreation.
“It’s important for people to grasp the long-lasting effects of leasing so much public land,” said Peter Hart, legal director of the Wilderness Workshop, dedicated to wildlife and wilderness conservation. “Once issued, leases are difficult to eliminate — they persist even if undeveloped.”
In a response to a 106-page comment letter filed on March 13 by the Wilderness Workshop and 17 other organizations, the Bureau of Land Management stated in an environmental assessment that it would conduct further site-specific analysis for each Colorado sale parcel if a company seeks a drilling permit.
The agency emphasized in its 646-page report that risks are mitigated through careful review of drilling and completion plans by both the BLM and Colorado’s Energy and Carbon Management Commission.
Federal officials removed four parcels and reduced a fifth, totaling around 4,800 acres, from the initial sale. This decision was based on a recent ruling by the Interior Board of Land Appeals. These parcels included habitats for the greater sage-grouse and Columbian sharp-tailed grouse, as well as high-priority areas for big game. However, numerous other parcels with similar characteristics remain in the sale.
The environmental assessment also noted that stipulations would be applied to leases for sensitive parcels to protect animals, plants, cultural resources, and fish.
Despite these measures, conservation groups monitoring oil and gas lease sales argue that federal land managers have limited flexibility at the permitting stage to relocate operations, add approval conditions, or cancel a lease. There is also an inability to exclude parcels deferred from past sales due to sensitive species habitats.
“During the first Trump administration, a proposed larger sale was reduced because the state Bureau of Land Management deferred parcels unsuitable due to greater sage-grouse conflicts,” said Alison Gallensky, a conservation geographer at Rocky Mountain Wild. “Now, they are compelled to offer a much larger sale than it eventually became,” she added.
Greater sage-grouse are extremely sensitive to oil and gas infrastructure, even if distanced from their habitat, as they perceive potential threats from predators that may perch on the equipment. They refrain from breeding if they sense danger, Gallensky explained.
Moreover, provisions intended to safeguard the birds, as outlined in the environmental analysis for the June lease sale, such as requiring oil and gas companies to build pads farther from nesting sites, depend on operators’ compliance — something the federal government isn’t always equipped to supervise, she noted.
The acreage involved in the June sale continues a trend initiated with last year’s federal oil and gas lease sales in Colorado, which typically offered public lands to energy companies in more remote regions.
In September, however, the agency leased a parcel near Aurora Reservoir, adjacent to a densely populated Denver suburb, for approximately $5.6 million. The land is part of the Lowry Ranch Comprehensive Area Plan, a project comprising over 150 wells approved by state regulators and strongly opposed by local residents.
Many of the more than 340 individual comments received for the June sale urged the agency not to lease similar parcels near the reservoir. Residents and conservation groups argued that emissions from oil and gas development would exacerbate pollution in an area already failing to meet federal air quality standards.
Additionally, the agency estimated in its analysis for the June sale that several parcels in Weld County, which hosts the state’s largest and most productive oil field, could result in up to 150 wells. Emissions from these wells would exacerbate smog in a region that already fails to meet national standards, conservation groups maintained.
“BLM’s claim that this lease sale ‘would result in no emission increase’ or that emissions aren’t foreseeable enough for a conformity determination is entirely baseless,” stated numerous organizations in a March 13 comment letter to the agency.
Federal officials responded in the environmental analysis that a “project-specific emissions inventory” would be conducted if companies file for drilling permits on the parcels after leasing. Permit requests would include details like the number of proposed wells, a drilling and completion schedule, and a list of equipment to be used, enabling a more comprehensive analysis, officials noted.
In Moffat County, on the Rocky Mountains’ western slope where much of the June oil and gas lease sale acreage is concentrated, community representatives stressed the need to balance pollution and environmental concerns with the economic reality that rising grocery and gas prices are affecting rural areas. Some residents in this sparsely populated region, where 80 percent of voters supported Trump in 2024, rely partially on drilling royalties to make ends meet, Kleinschnitz, the county’s tourism director, said.
“Many people in outfitting have agricultural businesses, and hunting is crucial for sustaining them on these landscapes,” he stated. “And some earn royalties from oil and gas, benefiting significantly from these activities.”
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