A Balanced Approach to Drilling on Public Lands

**Cross-posted from The Huffington Post**

By Ellis Richard

As a life-long Westerner, and former National Park Service ranger, I’ve spent a lot of time in and around some of America’s most treasured places. I dedicated my career to protecting these parks.

The future of our national parks, and all of the great open spaces of the west is important to me. These powerful American landscapes helped shape our national character, and defined a way of life, and a life style so many of us value. In many ways, these places define America and give meaning and vision to our lives.

With those concerns in mind, this week I took our cause of balanced oil and gas leasing to the Hill and joined the National Parks Conservation Association to brief Congressional offices about our work and the threat fracking and drilling poses to America’s national parks.

I was heartened by what I saw. Staff from more than 30 offices attended to learn about the need to place oil and gas drilling on equal ground with the future of our parks. In fact, it was standing-room-only. This kind of dialogue and interest is progress.

I have been blessed with the opportunity to work and live in communities across the West, from the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, to Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado. It was good to share some of those experiences and see folks paying attention to the need for smarter approach to energy development.

I told those in attendance that we can do this by allowing responsible drilling in the appropriate places, while protecting those treasured landscapes that are part of the American heritage, and an important driver in so many of our local economies.

Energy development and conservation on our public lands is not a zero sum game. There’s a right way and a wrong way to do things. We can achieve balance. For instance, past administrations have protected an acre of public lands for every land leased to oil and gas development. We can achieve that kind of balance if we put our minds to it.

The Obama administration should be planning ahead to allow for drilling in places where it won’t threaten our cultural and natural treasures. But instead, drilling is encroaching on national parks and monuments, including, near Mesa Verde National Park, Dinosaur National Monument, Chaco Canyon National Historic Park, and Pinnacles National Park. This past spring, federal officials in the Colorado office of the Bureau of Land Management wanted to allow drilling rigs right next the visitor center at Dinosaur National Monument.

Just this week, a new poll showed a bipartisan majority of Western voters are more interested in preserving land for recreation and the enjoyment of future generations than in using them for oil and gas drilling. It’s clear from this poll that people living in the west believe that oil and gas production can be done on public lands while also preserving the values of those iconic landscapes we’ve put aside as national parks.

What tourists want to see a drilling rig or take a whiff of gas in the air when they bring their families on vacation? National Parks drive local economies across the United States, especially in the West. National Parks generated $30.1 billion in economic activity each year. Visitors support local hotels, restaurants, stores and outfitters. Our great outdoors in the West also offer an unparalleled quality of life, which is why manufacturing and technological companies relocate there, providing job opportunities.

It’s a simple fact: our communities rely on national parks, and other open spaces to attract high-paying businesses, entrepreneurs and visitors to come to enjoy our world-class recreation resources just as much as we rely on energy development — done responsibly, in appropriate places. There are some places too special to drill.

Energy development on our public lands also provides economic benefits to our Western communities by creating jobs and providing American energy. I believe we can extract oil and gas responsibly from public lands and also provide the protection national parks need and deserve with a balanced approach to leasing.

My fellow rangers and I at Park Rangers for Our Lands believe we need to “look before we lease” our public lands to oil and gas development. If we take the time and do the work to plan ahead, we can stop problems before they start and protect the future of our parks.

We know some of these solutions will be hard to find, but that doesn’t mean we can just give up. We need the BLM and the National Park Service to work together to do the responsible planning needed to preserve the landscapes that can affect the values of the parks we have worked hard to set aside. If they will do the landscape level planning, we can safeguard those sensitive lands around the national park. It’s a balanced and reasonable alternative that extends protection to our parks while developing the energy resources our country needs.

View the original article here

BLM Colorado: Public Has No Need to Know About Public Lands, Public Monies, Public Employees

Cross-posted from ColoradoPols

In a show of arrogance that has become too typical of the Colorado State Office of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the agency is ignoring a Federal judge, media requests, stakeholders, and the public in denying public information about public activities on the public lands, according to the Durango Herald:

“This isn’t a widespread issue of public concern. It is primarily press that are concerned about oil and gas leasing and activists that are opposed to oil and gas leasing.”

The state ‘Communications Director’, one might assume, has the job as a public employee working on public lands issues and spending public monies, of informing the public and managing media relations.  The ‘press’ and public are–this common-sense assumption goes–the PRIMARY purpose of his receiving a Federal salary as a taxpayer-funded public employee.

But apparently not for BLM Colorado–where public information is no such thing, and the public and media are merely distractions from what ever other self-determined more important things, like defending illegal agency actions perhaps, or intentionally seeking to divide communities.

Colorado’s North Fork Standing Up

This particular matter has its roots in the BLM Colorado State Office’s reckless oil and gas leasing policy that willfully ignores local communities, other federal agencies, state wildlife officials, local businesses and the public, to lease whatever public lands secret industry representatives nominate.  This is despite Colorado having the oldest land use plans in the Mountain West, many dating back to the 1980s–like that that governs the public lands in the North Fork–most of which fail completely to properly account for, describe, consider or protect the resources and uses that exist or depend upon these lands today.

Citizens for a Healthy Community–a Delta County based conservation group–partnered with the Western Environmental Law Center to file lawsuit seeking the names of the nominators who put forward the contentious leases in that valley.  They won that suit.

Here is what the judge wrote:

“Competition in bidding advances the purpose of getting a fair price for a lease of publicly owned minerals,” Matsch wrote. “Moreover, the identity of the submitter may be relevant to the plaintiff and others who may raise concerns about the stewardship records of that potential owner, a factor relevant to the environmental impact of the proposed sale.”

So, a Federal judge acknowledges that sharing information on public lands and public minerals is in the public interest and orders the public employees at a public agency to release that (public) information.

And the senior staff at BLM Colorado Office responds, to paraphrase: Make us (again).

Following the judge’s decision and the BLM Colorado’s clear loss in court, others–including the Durango Herald–have now sought identical information regarding contentious leases in their communities.  Such as those surrounding Mesa Verde National Park opposed by the BLM’s own sister agency in the Department of Interior, the National Park Service.

Now, the Colorado State Office of the BLM, our public employees spending our public monies to manage our public lands and minerals, is refusing to release that information. Again.  Because, apparently its Communications Director has better things to do than communicate.

Maybe like spending more time in court defending the indefensible, losing more lawsuits, and greasing the skids for oil and gas in violation of what the Federal courts have found to be in the public’s interest.

View the original article here

Oil & Gas Development on Federal Lands and Waters

The White House had a post up last week with some numbers on production of oil and natural gas on America’s public lands and offshore waters. They want the facts to “speak for themselves,” so let’s chart their numbers over the past six years:

The White House says:

"We know that production levels will fluctuate from year-to-year based on market conditions and industry decisions."

Of course the same is true for private lands where production levels are up.

"It also reflects the fact that the nation battled a major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010."

An interesting point, given that 2010 production is the peak for oil. And it doesn’t explain the projected declines this year and next:

"Still, the overall trends show a clear picture of rising domestic production."

True if you include private lands, but on Federal?  Let’s look at the last three years part of their dataset.

Not sure “rising” means what they think it means.

Note:  An earlier version of the first and third charts above showed oil production as “billions” not “millions,”  we regret the error.  Sharp readers have also noted that the some of the numbers do not appear to match with EIA reports.  For this post we were just charting the data in the White House blog post mentioned.  We didn’t want to change the White House numbers lest we appear to be skewing their analysis to fit our commentary.

View the original article here

Oil & Gas Development on Federal Lands and Waters

The White House had a post up last week with some numbers on production of oil and natural gas on America’s public lands and offshore waters. They want the facts to “speak for themselves,” so let’s chart their numbers over the past six years:

The White House says:

"We know that production levels will fluctuate from year-to-year based on market conditions and industry decisions."

Of course the same is true for private lands where production levels are up.

"It also reflects the fact that the nation battled a major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010."

An interesting point, given that 2010 production is the peak for oil. And it doesn’t explain the projected declines this year and next:

"Still, the overall trends show a clear picture of rising domestic production."

True if you include private lands, but on Federal?  Let’s look at the last three years part of their dataset.

Not sure “rising” means what they think it means.

View the original article here