The Interior Department Bureau of Land Management issued a new plan which closed 1.6 million acres of federal land across Colorado, Utah and Wyoming from oil shale development. The new restrictions removed the majority of the area that had been allocated in its plan issued in 2008. Instead, the BLM has issued two leases making 700,000 acres available only for research and development. The reasons cited were environmental concerns on the wilderness characteristics of the land and endangering sage grouse habitats…