The Bureau of Land Management did not withhold government records in violation of the Freedom of Information Act, a federal judge in Colorado ruled in response to an environmental protection group’s complaint.

“Based on the totality of the facts of this case, the Court concludes that BLM acted in good faith and expended extensive efforts to comply with Rocky Mountain Wild’s FOIA request and the Court’s directive,” wrote U.S. District Judge William J. Martínez in a Dec. 30 order. “Rocky Mountain Wild has not produced evidence contradicting the adequacy of BLM’s search or evidence of BLM’s bad faith. Thus, the Court finds that BLM’s search, which was reasonable in scope and intensity, complies with its FOIA obligations.”

Rocky Mountain Wild, based in Denver, submitted a FOIA request to the BLM in October 2017, seeking information about planned oil and gas leases in Gunnison sage-grouse territory. The group contended that the lease of public lands was adjacent to the habitat of the birds who are designated as endangered. There are only an estimated 5,000 breeding Gunnison sage-grouse remaining in southwestern Colorado and Utah.

Along with San Miguel County and Conservation Colorado, Rocky Mountain Wild sued the agency over its allegedly improper consideration of how the lease sales would affect the sage-grouse. Oral argument before a federal judge occurred this year and the parties await a decision in that case.

Arguing the records BLM provided about the land were “unreasonably narrow,” the nonprofit succeeded in getting Martínez to tell BLM to conduct a more thorough search for documentation in March 2020.

“Rocky Mountain Wild’s enumeration of specific parcels should have been liberally construed to reach all of the parcels considered for the March 2018 lease sale,” the judge wrote at the time. “Accordingly, the Court finds that BLM’s search was deficient to the extent BLM excluded documents about parcels considered for the March 2018 lease sale but not listed in Rocky Mountain Wild’s FOIA request.”

Following Martínez’s order, BLM’s FOIA officer for Colorado worked with the employees familiar with the lease to determine which parcels were missing. They found only three in that category. The FOIA officer concluded the searches “likely captured nearly all” of the information.

With 30 other people searching their electronic devices and documents for information about the new parcels, BLM came up with 37 additional pages which it then turned over to Rocky Mountain Wild in May of 2020.

Shortly thereafter, Rocky Mountain Wild again argued BLM was withholding information, believing that the acting Colorado state director and a professional geologist had not searched the entirety of their records based on the request.

“The BLM searched all of the employees who had previously been identified as custodians [of records] in the earlier searches – notwithstanding that a number of these individuals had very little involvement in the March 2018 lease sale and were unlikely to possess responsive information,” countered U.S. Attorney for Colorado Jason R. Dunn on behalf of the agency.

Martínez acknowledged the two employees in question may have additional records in their possession. However, the standard for judging the case was the adequacy of BLM’s response, which the bureau had met.

“Our position and what the FOIA demands is that a reasonable search must obtain records from all agency staff that may possess such records,” responded Matthew Sandler, the staff attorney for Rocky Mountain Wild. “We are considering next steps in this case to ensure the public’s right to know what our government is up to is preserved and held to the highest standards.”  

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments in a similar case involving the U.S. Department of the Interior – the parent department of BLM – on Jan. 14. The department withheld certain information about the importation of African elephant and giraffe products, which an international animal advocacy organization is now challenging as a violation of the FOIA.