Judge Nixes California Lease Dispute Pending Environmental Review As Per Agreement

Mealey's (August 2, 2022, 9:59 AM EDT) -- LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California on Aug. 1 approved a stipulated settlement and dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit brought by environmental groups seeking to prevent hydraulic fracturing in California’s southern Central Coast and Central Valley region while the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) defers lease sales for fracking in that region in order to prepare a supplement to a previous environmental impact statement (EIS) in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)....