The Colorado Bureau of Land Management office has opened a public comment period for oil and gas leases in Colorado. 

On Dec. 9, the office announced that it would start a 30-day public scoping period on the sale of 174 parcels that may be included in a June sale. The sales encompass 160,628 acres in Moffat, Routt,  Rio Blanco and Garfield counties. 

After the 30-day period and before the sales, the agency “conducts an environmental analysis and coordinates with state partners and stakeholders,” according to the press release.

It is the third oil and gas lease process started this year under the new presidential administration, which has made bolstering domestic oil and gas production a top priority. Quarterly lease sales are required when eligible lands are available for leasing by the Mineral Leasing Act, enacted in 1920.

Oil and gas leases are awarded for a term of 10 years and as long thereafter as there is production of oil and gas in paying quantities. 

The Bureau just closed its fourth quarter lease sale in early December for 37 oil and gas parcels, generating over $4.8 million. The sales totaled 30,528 acres and included 27 parcels in Moffat County, five in Routt County, four in Rio Blanco County and one in Mesa County. The December 2025 oil and gas lease sale included 60 parcels totalling 50,979.79 acres, but 23 of the parcels received no bids. 

The Bureau received 12 protests to these sales: one protesting all parcels in the December sale, six protesting one parcel in the Little Snake Field Office — which oversees Bureau land in Moffat, Rio Blanco and Routt counties — and five that did not specify any parcels. These protests are still pending, according to a Dec. 8 Bureau notice.

According to the Bureau’s press release, the proceeds are distributed between the federal and Colorado state government. 

The lease sales represent a new era under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and President Donald Trump’s day one executive order to “unleash American energy.”

The federal tax bill lowered the royalty rate for new federal onshore oil and gas production to a minimum of 12.5%, reversing the 16.67% rate set by the Inflation Reduction Act under former President Joe Biden. The Bureau press release adds that these changes are “expected to spur additional leasing and drilling activity, which in turn supports increased domestic energy production and strengthens U.S. energy security.”

The December sale was the second successful quarterly oil and gas lease sale in 2025 in Colorado. The Bureau leased 14 parcels for over $6.7 million in September, with the scoping process beginning in the fall of 2024. The parcels totaled over 7,895 acres. 

According to the National Fluid Lease Sale database, the Colorado Bureau of Land Management office held one oil and gas lease sale in 2024 for a single 120-acre parcel in Weld County. Prior to that, it sold three parcels in 2022 — a sale that was postponed from 2020 — and 32 parcels totalling over 40,000 acres in December 2020.

The Colorado Bureau of Land Management Office closed a 30-day public comment period on Dec. 12, for 103 oil and gas parcels totaling 72,848 acres. These parcels will be included in a March 2026 sale. The sale includes parcels in Baca, Las Animas, Arapahoe, Weld, Jackson, Routt, Rio Blanco, Garfield, Mesa, Delta and Gunnison counties. 

In September 2025, environmental advocacy nonprofit Conservation Colorado issued a press release on behalf of a coalition of organizations criticizing the proposed March 2026 lease sales, which it said was the largest sale since 2018 when the Bureau sold around 68,000 acres in Colorado. In addition to Conservation Colorado, the coalition included Wilderness Workshop, Colorado Wildlands Project and The Wilderness Society. 

“Coloradans will lose their freedom to access their public lands because of this proposed lease sale,” said Jim Ramey, Colorado state director at The Wilderness Society. “This lease sale shortchanges future generations by surrendering our lands to fossil fuel interests, ignoring the overwhelming number of Coloradans who want public lands protections and balanced management, not lands locked up for decades of drilling.”