The Rocky Mountains hold one of the last great untapped domestic reserves for oil and natural gas, but protests by environmental groups are delaying the leasing of federal lands and holding up millions of dollars for state and county coffers, according to the Bureau of Land Management.
Henri Bisson, interim BLM director for the state of Utah, said Friday that nearly every oil and gas lease sale since 1998 has resulted in formal administrative protests. And with 334,000 acres of BLM land up for lease on Aug. 15, the agency on Friday took the offensive against a growing outcry by critics.
"The protest period is an important part of BLM's process," Bisson said. "However, many of these protests have become increasingly complex and lengthy. Many protests add significant time and workload for BLM staff and rarely yield new information or valid arguments that compel BLM to change its environmental analysis or proposed decisions."
Bisson said more than $40 million in recent leases have been awarded, but the leases have not been issued because of an 18-month backlog in protests. Currently, the $40 million is sitting in a noninterest-bearing account. Utah state government is entitled to roughly half of the $40 million.
In addition, delayed leases mean delays for drilling permits, which generate millions more in royalties to state and local governments.
With talk of oil reaching $100 per barrel and gasoline prices nearing $4 a gallon in some parts of the country, the urgency to find new energy sources is turning attention to the Rocky Mountains, which hold the second-largest natural gas resource in the nation.
Stephen Bloch, an attorney with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, acknowledged Friday that lease protests by SUWA and other environmental groups have increased, mainly due to the Bush administration's "inexorable push to sell leases in Utah on our most sensitive public lands."
On Monday, SUWA will file a protest on the upcoming Aug. 15 lease sale, Bloch said.
"We're challenging a narrow subset of parcels that would conflict with proposed wilderness designation or other sensitive lands," Bloch said. "We're not challenging leasing, for example, near Sigurd (Sevier County). We're not out there stopping development at every turn."
Once a lease is obtained by a company, the BLM requires additional permitting and environmental analysis to explore or drill. Bisson said it typically takes five to eight years after a lease is secured to finally get oil and gas out of the ground.
Still, Bloch maintains that Utah has less than 1 percent of known gas reserves in the United States.
"And the United States has 2 to 3 percent of proven oil and gas reserves on a global scale," Bloch said. "We're not going to be able to drill our way to energy independence by sinking wells in our most sensitive lands. But that is what is being trumpeted by companies who stand to profit from that development."
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