"Oil drilling in Nevada is a risky bet—the geology is complicated and drillers say the odds are small that they will actually find oil in a state where there are only 120 producing wells.

But since President Donald Trump took office pledging to expand oil and gas leasing on federal lands, Nevada has become the Wild West for oil speculation.

The administration has put more than 1.8 million acres of federal lands in Nevada on the auction block for leasing since March 2017, more than double the 818,000 acres leased in Nevada during the last four years of the Obama administration.

Many of the leases are in regions that have little proven oil production potential, according to environmental group protests filed against the lease sales."

Bobby Magill reports for Bloomberg Environment August 5, 2019. [2]