The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced April 21 it will not hold any federal oil and gas lease sales through June.

Lease sales had been scheduled by BLM offices for the second quarter in Wyoming, Nevada, Montana and North Dakota, Colorado and Utah, according to an April 22 research note by Enverus.

President Joe Biden in January signed an executive order pausing new oil and gas drilling leases on federal lands pending a review of the leasing program. The Interior Department began its review in late March and has not commented on how long the leasing pause would last.

The BLM has resumed processing permits for valid, existing leases on federal lands in late March after a 60-day freeze.

The pause of the federal oil and gas leasing program, however, has triggered heavy criticism from the oil industry and producing states.

In March, 14 U.S. states including Louisiana and Wyoming filed lawsuits against the Biden administration seeking to restore the federal oil and gas lease sales.

A coalition of 13 states filed one lawsuit in federal court in Louisiana. The states joining Louisiana’s lawsuit included Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.

Meanwhile, Wyoming filed its own lawsuit in federal court in that state.

In a recent letter to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon claimed that Western states stand to have “investment losses of $2.3 billion, production value losses of $882 million and tax revenue losses of $345 million in the first year of the moratorium.”

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