A federal appeals court in Denver on Thursday handed environmental groups what could be a short-lived victory, overturning a lower court that said the U.S. Bureau of Land Management exceeded its authority by issuing regulations on hydraulic fracturing on public lands. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals noted that the Trump administration is now proposing to scrap the rules altogether. The oil and gas industry and states, including Colorado, had asked the appeals court to hold off indefinitely on deciding whether the agency had the right to develop a rule that supporters say would protect public land from harm. In 2016, the U.S.