(CN) — The U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Monday formally released documents detailing plans to allow oil and gas drilling on 1 million acres of public land across southern California while downplaying the environmental impact of the development.
“The draft supplemental environmental impact statement concludes that emissions from oil and gas development are minor and are not expected to significantly affect regional air quality or public health,” government officials from the Bakersfield Field Office Oil and Gas Leasing and Development wrote in the 89-page report.
In the report, the agency attributes less than 1% of regional air pollutants to oil and gas, instead pointing to wildfires, cars and agriculture for generating unnamed emissions…