Comments closed July 24
Stop geothermal drilling leases on 83,000 Nevada acres
Bureau of Land Management · Ely District Office administered lands, Ely District Office (EYDO) parcels
- What
- The BLM plans to auction drilling rights on 83,000 public acres in Nevada, opening them to industrial geothermal development.
- Where
- Ely District Office administered lands, Ely District Office (EYDO) parcels, NV
- How much
- Over 83,000 acres of Nevada public land face exploration drilling, road construction, and surface disturbance if these 25 parcels are leased.
- Decided
- Comments closed July 24, 2026. No decision document is on file yet.Date from BLM ePlanning project page ↗, read July 8, 2026.
Where these four lines come from
- WhatOur plain-English read of the BLM NEPA Register DOI-BLM-NV-L000-2026-0002-EA ↗. Check it against the agency’s own words under Case.
- WhereThe places and states the notice names, as PLAN read them.
- How muchThe first sentence of our What’s at risk read of the notice; the whole read is under Case.
- DecidedJuly 24, 2026, from BLM ePlanning project page, its public participation period ↗. Read July 8, 2026. The decision document is the one on file in PLAN’s record.
- Read from PLAN’s record November 9, 2026.
What the proposal said, and what the decision did
No figure from the proposal has been checked against the decision on this fight yet. What the record does hold is the issues ledger below.
No decision document is on PLAN’s record for this fight yet. When the agency’s decision lands, what it answered goes here.
Affects public lands
The BLM plans to auction drilling rights on 83,000 public acres in Nevada, opening them to industrial geothermal development.
What’s at risk
If this goes through
Our plain-English read of the official notice ↗. Check it against the agency’s own words below.
In the agency’s own words
The BLM is considering offering 25 parcels in the EYDO, comprising approximately 83,150.15 acres of land within the area administered by the EYDO, in a competitive Geothermal Lease Sale to be held on October 20, 2026.
The groups on this fight
4 groups predicted likely to care in Nevada
Predicted likely to care is a guess from the group's sourced work in Nevada, with no link to this decision. Give straight to them; nothing routes through us.
- Center for Biological Diversity
Predicted likely to care · a guess
Gold Butte National Monument, Nevada: Sued the Bureau of Land Management in March 2024 for failing to produce the legally required management plan for Gold Butte National Monument.
- Conservation Lands Foundation
Predicted likely to care · a guess
Avi Kwa Ame National Monument, Nevada: Backed the Honor Avi Kwa Ame designation campaign alongside the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe and keeps the monument in its National Conservation Lands defense portfolio.
- Friends of Nevada Wilderness
Predicted likely to care · a guess
Gold Butte National Monument, Nevada: Ran the petition campaign pressing Nevada officials to pull Gold Butte from the Interior Department's monument review and has defended the monument since the designation fight, which drew over 90,000 supportive comments.
- Tahoe Rim Trail Association
Predicted likely to care · a guess
Works Nevada: Nevada is one of the 2 states they work in.
Every group above is on STAND for Public Lands, with its court record, its filings and who backs it.
Who signs it
The notice names no signer PLAN could read. PLAN names a decision-maker only when the document names one.
The ground
The window has closed, so there’s no watch to set on it here.
The photograph on this page: Greater sage-grouse displaying on a lek in sagebrush country. It’s the country this decision sits in, not the site itself. More Than Just Parks.
In court on this ground
No court case we track is over Basin And Range Nm Field Office, Bristlecone Field Office and 1 more unit.
Who holds the vote
PLAN’s record doesn’t tie a member of Congress to this fight yet. The scorecard grades the votes and bills that decide public lands; nothing joins a vote or a bill to this decision, so there’s no member to name here without guessing.
See how your members vote ↗BLM ePlanningWe track this on the agency’s own system of record, where most on-the-ground decisions live.
Know an open comment period we are missing, or spotted a wrong deadline? .
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