The Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) and Western Energy Alliance have sued the Secretary of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), challenging BLM’s issuance of regulations related to hydraulic fracturing on federal and Indian lands.

The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Wyoming, calls BLM’s rulemaking “a reaction to unsubstantiated concerns,” and says the administrative record lacks the factual, scientific, or engineering evidence necessary to sustain the agency’s action.

In May of 2012, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management released its proposed well stimulation and hydraulic fracturing regulation for federal and Indian lands. The original intent of the rule was to ensure that the hydraulic fracturing process does not contaminate groundwater.

IPAA, Western Energy Alliance, and a number of cooperating associations opposed the proposed rule, arguing that it duplicated state regulation of oil and natural gas. IPAA and Western Energy Alliance urged BLM to identify inadequacies in existing regulations that BLM’s proposed rule would remediate.

BLM received 177,000 comments from interested stakeholders in response to its original proposal. To address the issues raised in those comments, in May of 2013 the BLM issued a supplemental proposal. IPAA, Western Energy Alliance, and numerous cooperating associations still opposed the proposed rule and requested the BLM to withdraw the regulation.