Public Comment Periods

Public comments will be accepted electronically via the BLM Land Use Planning and NEPA Register (ePlanning) by clicking on the NEPA project links below. Comments received by other methods will not be accepted. Only documents, such as, but not limited to, exhibits and references, timely submitted to the BLM in conjunction with your comments will be considered. All documents should be included with your comment submitted through ePlanning. If the documents are too large to be submitted through ePlanning, the documents can be submitted through a secure file transfer application or external media device. All external media devices are required to be scanned for viruses. If the device is determined to not be safe, then it will be returned to the sender.

Please note that the most useful public comments are substantive comments that identify issues relevant to the proposed action, question, with reasonable basis, the accuracy of information, methodology or assumptions, present reasonable alternatives other than those analyzed, cause changes or revisions in the alternatives being analyzed, or contain new technical or scientific information for the BLM to consider in the environmental analysis to be prepared in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Comments which contain only opinions or preferences, or comments that are essentially identical to other comments will not be specifically addressed in the environmental review process.

Before including your address, phone number, e-mail address, or other personal identifying information in your public scoping comment, you should be aware that your entire comment - including your personal identifying information - may be made publicly available at any time. While you can ask us in your comment to withhold your personal identifying information from public review, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so.

Protest Period

Under regulation Title 43 CFR subpart 3120.1-3, the inclusion of a parcel in a Notice of Competitive Lease Sale may be protested. Protests received that do not meet the following requirements will be summarily dismissed.

  • Submission of the protest to the BLM New Mexico State Office no later than 4:00 PM local Mountain Time) on the last day of the protest period.
  • Submission of a hardcopy protest either by hand delivery, mailed in hardcopy form, or temporarily through email (email address to be provided in the Sale Notice).
  • Inclusion of the name and address of the protesting party. If the party signing the protest is doing so on behalf of an association, partnership or corporation (group), the signing party must reveal the relationship between the party and the group. An individual member of a group cannot make a protest in the group’s name without authorization of the group. All protests must be signed. 
  • Reference to the specific parcel number(s) being protested.
  • Disclosure of protesting party’s interest in the parcel(s).
  • Inclusion of a statement of reason(s) to support the protest of the specific parcel(s).
  • Only documents, such as, but not limited to, exhibits and references, timely submitted to the BLM in conjunction with your protest will be considered. 

In addition, when the BLM provides an opportunity for public participation during its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis and decision-making process, a party may raise only those issues it raised in its prior participation or issues that arose after the close of the opportunity for such participation. See, e.g., Dept. of Transp. V. Public Citizen, 541 U.S 752, 764 (2008); Western Watersheds Project, 188 IBLA 234, 248-249 (2016). Where a party has not raised any objections during the public involvement opportunities during the NEPA process and does not raise any novel issues that arose after the NEPA process, the party will have forfeited the objections they raise for the first time at the protest and their protests will be dismissed.

Any protest, including names and street addresses, submitted will be made available for public review. Individuals submitting a protest may request their personal identifiable information be withheld from public review or from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, by prominently stating this request at the beginning of the protest. Such requests will be honored to the extent allowed by law. All protests received from associations, partnerships, corporations (groups) or individuals identifying themselves as representatives or officials of a group, will be made available for public inspection in their entirety.