In January, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposed new rules to limit the amount of gas being vented, flared, and leaked from oil and gas operations on federal and Indian lands, updating regulations that were more than 30 years old. At the time, and in public meetings hosted by the BLM in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, and North Dakota, Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) has asserted that the rule is a good step toward ensuring taxpayers get a fair return for public natural gas resources. At those public meetings and elsewhere, oil and natural gas industry representatvies and others opposed to the rule have sought to delay its implementation by requesting that BLM extend the public comment period by a number of months. In response, TCS sent the letter below to the BLM urging the department to reject the calls for delay. In 2013, more than $400 million of natural gas was wasted by being vented, flared, or leaked from extraction activities on BLM-managed lands. For this rule, more time is lost money.

Update: a week after the below letter was sent, BLM announced it would extend the public comment period, but only for two weeks – a move that will keep the rulemaking process on track, and end the waste of public resources sooner rather than later.