The Bureau of Land Management in Colorado held one of its largest oil and gas lease sales on Tuesday, June 16, offering sales of 170 parcels in Arapahoe, Garfield, Jackson, Mesa, Moffat, Rio Blanco, Routt and Weld counties.

The sale generated over $35.26 million from 147 parcels covering 134,173 acres in these nine counties. The leases were sold to 16 different entities. 

While the June lease sale was one of the BLM’s quarterly leases mandated by the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, it was the fourth conducted in Colorado under the new presidential administration, which has ushered in a new era under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and President Donald Trump’s day-one executive order to “unleash American energy.” 

The federal tax bill reduced the royalty rate for new federal onshore oil and gas production to a minimum of 12.5%, reversing the 16.67% rate set by the Inflation Reduction Act under former President Joe Biden, to spur additional leasing and drilling activity.  

Including the June sale, the four lease sales conducted in Colorado under Trump’s second administration have resulted in the lease of 266 parcels, spanning over 215,000 acres and amassing nearly $54.94 million. This includes a September 2025 lease sale — for which the environmental review was initiated under Biden. 

Before these latest sales, the Colorado BLM office held one oil and gas lease sale in 2024 for a single 120-acre parcel in Weld County. Prior to that, it sold three parcels in a 2022 sale that was postponed from 2020 — and 32 parcels totalling over 40,000 acres in December 2020.

According to BLM’s press release, the proceeds from the sale are distributed between the federal and Colorado state governments. The leases are awarded for a term of 10 years or longer if the wells continue to produce oil and gas. 

Lease sales see protest from state wildlife agency, others 

Ten of the leases offered and sold on Tuesday were protested by Colorado Parks and Wildlife during the public comment period, with the state wildlife agency claiming oil and gas development would interfere with several conservation easements and efforts to protect wildlife and habitats. 

The BLM denied the protest, claiming that “conservation easements do not preclude oil and gas development when the subsurface mineral rights are severed from the surface ownership.” It adds that leasing itself does not authorize drilling, and further review of impacts is required during the process for companies to acquire drilling permits. 

According to Parks and Wildlife’s protest, seven of the Moffat County parcels overlapped with the agency’s conservation easement on the Tuttle Ranch State Habitat Area, which it acquired in 2012 to protect greater sage-grouse, elk, mule deer and pronghorn habitat. It also includes a parcel in Mesa County, which overlapped with a portion of a conservation easement held by Parks and Wildlife at the Hawxhurst Ranch State Habitat Area to protect big game and cutthroat trout. 

The last two parcels protested by the state wildlife agency overlapped with parts of the agency’s conservation easements at Horn Ranch Keystone I in Rio Blanco County and the Bakers Peak Ranch in Moffat County, which are held by third-party land trusts and which Parks and Wildlife has partially funded. 

Parks and Wildlife’s comments and protest were among 19 comments received during the June lease sale’s public comment period. Kemba Anderson, BLM Colorado’s acting deputy state director, in the response to Parks and Wildlife, wrote that these 19 comments also expressed concerns around air quality, wildlife habitat, land eligibility, policy and procedure, water resources and more. Any substantial concerns were addressed during the environmental assessment, she added. 

The BLM removed four parcels from its initial proposal to what was offered in June. The parcels were overseen by the agency’s Little Snake Field Office, which spans Moffat and Rio Blanco counties, and were removed “due to a recent order by the Interior Board of Land Appeals,” according to the environmental assessment. No details about the order were shared in the report. 

Juli Slivka, senior director of policy and programs at the Carbondale-based Wilderness Workshop, called the June sales “a sweeping insult to Colorado” in a statement. The Wilderness Workshop was among 18 environmental advocacy organizations that filed a protest of the June sales. The protest raised 22 issues spanning from policy and procedure questions concerns about impacts to public health, wildlife, climate and more — the BLM denied all claims.  

“This massive leasing footprint will degrade critical wildlife habitat in northwest Colorado, including mule deer migration pathways that extend into Wyoming and severe winter range for elk herds,” Slivka said. “This lease sale ignores the needs and voices of Colorado’s communities by prioritizing corporate profit over the protection of our wild public lands, our quality of life and our economies.”

Nicole Potter, a member of the Western Colorado Alliance, wrote in a statement that three of the parcels were less than 15 miles from her house where she hikes, fishes and picks fruit and that other parcels intersected with popular hunting spots on the Grand Mesa outside of Meeker. 

“Unfortunately, the horrifying leasing requirements passed by Congress last year mean that this sale is just the beginning,” Potter said. “We should all be able to say ‘no’ when the public lands we love and cherish are proposed for lease — and the Bureau of Land Management must be able to listen.”

The Western Energy Alliance, an industry trade group representing Colorado and 12 other states, has applauded the push to grow domestic energy production. In April, Melissa Simpson, said in a statement that “these sales reaffirm the value of public land development to America’s energy future at a time when the world is grappling with instability and energy volatility.” 

“We have the energy we need to sustain our nation under our feet,” she added. 

BLM Colorado is in the process of scoping for two additional oil and gas lease sales this year: a September sale of 31 parcels and a December sale of 114 parcels.