The BLM on Tuesday leased 14 oil and gas parcels spanning 7,895 acres in Colorado for more than $6.7 million, setting a revenue record in one of one of the largest state lease sales in at least 20 years.
And more are coming as the BLM plans the largest sale in more than two decades in March 2026 and the second largest in December, with a total of 174 parcels spanning nearly 124,000 acres offered in both auctions.
The pending auctions reveal the Trump administration’s stark shift from President Joe Biden, who offered fewer acres of public land for oil and gas development than any administration since WWII.
Since 2022, the BLM has sold only three leases to energy developers in Colorado, covering a little more than 400 acres. There were no new oil and gas leases offered or sold in 2023 and only one parcel was offered and sold in 2024. Energy companies have 2,169 producing leases on 1.47 million acres of BLM land in Colorado.
The lease sale Tuesday averaged $844 an acre. It was the first lease sale conducted under the Trump administration’s budget bill, which reset the royalty rate at 12.5%, down from the Biden administration’s 16.67% set in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The reduction of the royalty rate “is expected to spur additional leasing and drilling activity, which in turn supports increased domestic energy production and strengthens U.S. energy security,” reads a statement from the BLM Colorado Office announcing the sale.
Taxpayers for Common Sense, a 30-year-old federal budget watchdog group, has long advocated for an increase to the 12.5% royalty rate set in the 1920s. This week the group said U.S. taxpayers stood to lose $15.5 million in royalty revenue in the next 12 years from the rate reduction on the Colorado leases the BLM sold Tuesday.
“Taxpayers will once again be shortchanged as companies lock in decades of drilling under terms that don’t reflect the true value of America’s oil and gas resources,” reads a report from Taxpayers for Common Sense.
50,988 acres hit the lease auction block in December
In December, the BLM is planning to auction 60 oil and gas lease parcels in Colorado across 50,988 acres in Garfield, Jackson, Mesa, Moffat, Rio Blanco, and Routt counties.
A 305-page environmental analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act looked at how drilling on 61 proposed parcels covering 51,068 acres might impact air quality, greenhouse gas emissions and socioeconomic conditions in nearby communities. The BLM estimated a full leasing of all 61 parcels would deliver $3.89 million in revenue to the state and federal governments. Doug Vilsack, the director of the BLM in Colorado, in June concluded that leasing all but one of the parcels — so 60 parcels covering 50,988 acres — aligned with regional land use plans and “will not significantly affect the quality of the human environment.” (Public comment on the December lease sale is closed.)
In March the agency is planning to auction 103 parcels totaling 72,848 acres in Arapahoe, Baca, Delta, Garfield, Gunnison, Jackson, Las Animas, Mesa, Rio Blanco, Routt and Weld counties. If the agency ends up auctioning all those parcels it will be the largest sale in Colorado in at least 20 years. The agency is collecting public comment on that sale through Oct. 2.
The sale reflects pent-up demand after a six-year backlog of the BLM considering energy company nominations for acres available for leasing, said Kathleen Sgamma, a longtime oil and gas industry advocate in Colorado who President Donald Trump initially tapped to run the BLM and who now heads her own consulting firm, Multiple Use Advocacy.
If the parcels listed for the December and March sales are recent nominations by energy companies or even older parcel nominations that the producers are still interested in exploring, she said, “then the likelihood is high that they will all be sold.
“I’m glad to see the Trump BLM is moving forward,” Sgamma said.
The parcels in the Tuesday lease sale, while the first under the reduced royalty rate, were initially proposed last year under the Biden administration.
And the parcels chosen by the Biden administration were high potential. Unlike the parcels identified for the December and March sales, said Emily Hornback, the executive director of the Western Colorado Alliance advocacy group in Grand Junction.
“The differences between the sales from this year with what’s proposed for next year are very dramatic,” Hornback said. “There are lots of conflicts with wilderness and wildlife and local communities. There are a number of areas of environmental concern. This is a huge moment of shifting policies and priorities and we are definitely trying to raise the alarm on that. Not only is this locking up hundreds of thousands of acres of public land for oil and gas use, it’s also costing taxpayers and for us in western Colorado that directly translates into lost revenue for local government infrastructure and education.”
The BLM is weighing reductions in bonding requirements that Biden raised, which would make it cheaper for oil and gas companies to secure leases for drilling on public lands, said Aaron Weiss with the Center for Western Priorities. The rapid changes to oil and gas leasing on public lands in the West are producing “massive public comment and outcry,” Weiss said.
The Trump administration’s push to increase domestic energy production on public lands is one issue among several that is drawing “massive public comment” right now, Weiss said.
The Interior Department on Wednesday announced plans to rescind the 2024 rule adopted by the BLM that added conservation to its list of multiple uses on 81 million acres of land, including 8.3 million acres in Colorado. The Forest Service is collecting comments on a plan to reverse the 25-year-old roadless rule that protects 59 million acres of National Forest from development, allowing roadbuilding for increased wildfire mitigation and logging. And the Trump administration is slashing budgets and staff at land management agencies as part of a larger overhaul of the federal bureaucracy. And the administration is working to reduce the amount of time land managers can solicit public comment on policy changes.
Expect lawsuits challenging the lease sales too, Weiss said.
“The first time around the Trump administration was sloppy and lost a lot of court battles. I do not expect that will change in the second round because they have fired more of the folks who handle oil and gas sales; the experts in the field offices who oversee these sales are gone,” Weiss said. “All that points to giant sales like they are planning for next year being more exposed to legal challenges.”