SALT LAKE CITY— The Bureau of Land Management announced today that it has completed an “accelerated environmental review process” and approved the proposed expansion of the Wildcat Loadout Facility near Helper, Utah.

The facility is used to transfer Uinta Basin crude oil from tanker trucks to rail cars. The expansion could result in an additional 80,000 barrels of crude oil per day traveling on train tracks along the Colorado River, raising the risk of oil spills and other accidents.

The review, which provided no public input opportunities, was initiated in response to the “National Energy Emergency”  declared by President Trump in January 2025.

The Wildcat project proponent (Coal Energy Group 2, LLC) initially submitted an application to the BLM for the expansion in 2023. But BLM put the expansion on hold for two years because the applicant failed to provide the agency with the necessary information needed to evaluate it. The agency has offered no explanation for why this long-dormant project, one stalled by the proponent’s own actions, is suddenly an “emergency.”

“There is no energy emergency, plain and simple. Hidden behind a shroud of secrecy, the BLM has rushed through its approval of this massive oil shipping expansion project,” said Landon Newell, staff attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. “This thinly analyzed decision threatens the lifeblood of the American Southwest by authorizing the transport of more than 1 billion gallons annually of additional oil on railcars traveling alongside the Colorado River. Any derailment and oil spill would have a devastating impact on the Colorado River and the communities and ecosystems that rely upon it."

“The Trump administration's refusal to hear community concerns about oil spill risks is pure hubris. Local communities know better than D.C. bureaucrats how this dangerous increase in oil trucking and rail traffic will affect their health and safety,” said Wendy Park at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This fast-tracked review breezed past vital protections for clean air, public safety and endangered species.”

Background

Coal Energy Group 2, LLC is seeking to reconfigure its current facility to add new infrastructure, including adding unloading areas, an oil tank farm, loading systems and related facilities. This expansion will increase the site's capacity to move oil from tanker trucks to rail car by more than 1 billion gallons annually.

Oil will be transported in trucks to the facility through the narrow Indian Canyon from the Uinta Basin, where it will be transloaded onto railcars at Wildcat. Those railcars will travel east along the Union Pacific line, where, for over a hundred miles, the tracks roughly parallel the Colorado River, the source of water for more than 40 million people across the West.

In 2023 U.S. Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Representative Joe Neguse (D-CO-2) called on BLM to prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed expansion. On June 23 they released the following statement:

“The Bureau of Land Management’s decision to fast-track the Wildcat Loadout expansion — a project that would transport an additional 70,000 barrels of crude oil on train tracks along the Colorado River — using emergency procedures is profoundly flawed. These procedures give the agency just 14 days to complete an environmental review — with no opportunity for public input or administrative appeal — despite the project’s clear risks to Colorado.

There is no credible energy emergency to justify bypassing public involvement and environmental safeguards. The United States is currently producing more oil and gas than any country in the world. We strongly oppose BLM’s use of emergency authority in this case and urge Secretary Burgum to suspend this process and conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement that gives Coloradans a voice in decisions that directly affect them.”