The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has increased the fines for operators who extract petroleum or natural gas from government land that they do not have a lease to conduct such operations, or for operators who lack permission to travel over government land to get to a site where extraction operations are being conducted.
On February 26, 2024, BLM made public the increased fines in its rule, titled, 'Onshore Oil and Gas Operations and Coal Trespass—Annual Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustments.' The rule lists six infractions for which penalties are assessed, as well as the amount of the previous penalty, and the amount of the new penalty. They are: