The Bureau of Land Management opened a 30-day public comment period on 15 oil and gas parcels covering 4,054 acres in New Mexico and Oklahoma, parcels the agency wants to include in a February 2027 lease sale. Comments are due Oct. 30, 2026.
The BLM completed scoping on the parcels in September 2026 and is now asking for input on the parcels themselves and the environmental analysis tied to them. The agency said it will use that input to finish its review of each parcel. That review is part of the federal leasing policy that applies before any of these parcels can move to sale.
The path from lease to drill site
Leasing is only the first step toward developing federal oil and gas resources. Before any drilling starts, an operator must file an application for permit to drill, a filing that lays out where and how the company plans to drill on a parcel it has leased. The BLM reviews each application, posts it for public review, conducts its own environmental analysis, and coordinates with state partners and other stakeholders. Every parcel that reaches a federal lease sale carries stipulations meant to protect natural resources on the land.
Where the parcels sit
The parcels span three BLM field offices, each tied to its own NEPA number:
| Field office | NEPA number |
|---|---|
| Carlsbad | DOI-BLM-NM-P020-2026-1439-EA |
| Farmington | DOI-BLM-NM-F010-2026-0077-EA |
| Oklahoma | DOI-BLM-NM-0040-2026-0040-EA |
Maps of the parcels and instructions for submitting comments are posted on the BLM's ePlanning website. The lease sale itself will run online through the agency's Efficient Markets system, and details on current and upcoming sales are tracked through the National Fluid Lease Sale System.
The New Mexico and Oklahoma acreage is a small piece of a much larger program. The BLM manages about 245 million acres of public land across 12 western states, including Alaska, and separately administers 700 million acres of subsurface mineral estate nationwide.
