On December 10, the Department of the Interior (DOI) announced a replacement sale in Wyoming, which will re-offer 26,050 acres of federal land for oil and gas development. The sale “replaces” the fourth quarter oil and gas lease sale held in the state on December 3, which received bids on less than 75% of the offered acres. This is the first time a replacement sale—a new requirement created this summer in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA)—has been triggered, and questions remain on how it will be implemented.

Under the Mineral Leasing Act (MLA), the DOI is required to hold quarterly lease sales in states with public land available to be leased for oil and gas development. This summer, Congress implemented a new requirement for quarterly lease sales held in Alaska, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming—a replacement sale if the quarterly auction is canceled, delayed, deferred, or does not attract a sufficient number of bids. If the sale fails to receive bids on 25% or more of the offered acreage, DOI is required to hold a replacement sale. The bill does not specify what parcels to include in the replacement sale.

In 2025, two lease sales triggered the replacement sale requirement—the Wyoming and Colorado Quarter 4 auctions:

• The Wyoming Quarter 4 lease sale was held on December 3 and offered nearly 80,000 acres for oil and gas development. The auction leased only 53,119 acres—meaning it failed to receive bids on 33% of the offered acreage. On December 10, the DOI announced it would hold another auction in 20 days, re-offering the 26,050 acres of that did not sell in the original sale. It is unclear if and how this sale may come into conflict with the noncompetitive leasing system, which allows oil and gas companies to directly acquire parcels outside of competitive auction (and without paying a bid) if those parcels had previously been put up at auction but received no bids.
• The Colorado Quarter 4 lease sale was held on December 9 and offered nearly 51,000 acres for oil and gas development. The auction leased only 30,528 acres—meaning it failed to receive bids on 40% of the offered acreage. The replacement sale has not yet been announced.

Mandating more sales after a sale attracts little industry interest makes no fiscal sense. The replacement sale requirement is likely to significantly increase the number of lease sales offered next year—between 2015 and 2024, 38% of all onshore lease sales would have met the requirements for a replacement sale—and will only waste taxpayer resources by administering sales for parcels no one wants and create more opportunities for industry to scoop up our valuable federal resources at rock-bottom prices.