Bush administration officials express some concern about Wyoming Range bill
NOELLE STRAUB Star-Tribune Washington bureau | Posted: Thursday, February 28, 2008 12:00 am
WASHINGTON - Bush administration officials on Wednesday gave nominal support to a bill that would put 1.2 million acres of the Wyoming Range off limits to new energy development, but Gov. Dave Freudenthal criticized them for putting up roadblocks to the measure.
A Bureau of Land Management official testified that the Bush administration supports the measure, but then suggested that lawmakers look at options other than withdrawing the land from development.
"This area contains significant energy resources, and we are concerned that a withdrawal from mineral development that is too broad could significantly impact the administration's efforts to ensure access to important energy resources," said BLM Deputy Director Luke Johnson.
The remarks came at a hearing of a Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee, the first step on moving the bill introduced in October by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.
Johnson suggested that there could be restrictions on surface disturbance while allowing the resources to be extracted from adjacent BLM lands using new technologies, and that restrictions could be made more selectively rather than as a blanket approach.
Melissa Simpson, an agriculture deputy undersecretary, said the administration would have to work with Congress on the potential budgetary impact of the bill and suggested several other, lesser changes to the measure.
Freudenthal testified that the bill has widespread public support but "significant opponents." He argued that even the most modern drilling techniques would significantly harm waters and wildlife.
"To give you some demonstration how strongly I feel about it, I really resent the idea that I have to ask the federal government for help for anything, but in this case I do," Freudenthal testified.
He said Wyoming has a responsibility to produce energy for the country, "but there's a point at which enough is enough and we talk about balance." He said he hears the argument about national security and that if the state doesn't produce enough energy "there will surely be a terrorist in the Wyoming Capitol in short order."
"I don't believe that the Wyoming Range should be a casualty of the failure of this country to have a rational energy policy that deals with energy efficiency and conservation and a fully diversified energy portfolio," he said.
In a brief interview after the hearing, Freudenthal said the fact that administration officials expressed support for the bill was a better position than he expected to hear.
"It's one of those, 'We want to support it,' but then they proceed I think to help create obstacles," he said. "I want to be encouraging with regard to certain sentences in the testimony, and suggest that perhaps some of the other language is really just intended to throw up a roadblock."
Freudenthal flew to Washington and back the same day so as not to miss much of the state legislative session. He said he and Barrasso met before the hearing with committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., who "was encouraging" about the bill.
Freudenthal said that almost 26 million acres of federal lands in Wyoming were open to oil and gas leasing, or roughly 86 percent of all federal lands in the state.
"This legislation is a monumental step forward," Barrasso said. "It will ensure the continuation of a diversified economy for the area. It will enhance tourism, recreation and hunting in the Wyoming Range and it will protect the splendid natural landscape for future generations."
Freudenthal said the legislation is urgently needed because the administration has an "expedited schedule" to approve drilling on about 44,000 acres of contested leases in the area.
The bill does not address the contested leases. Both administration officials testified in favor of changing the bill to allow those leases to be issued and developed.
The late Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., had planned to introduce similar legislation the week he died. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., has signed on as a co-sponsor of Barrasso's bill.
Gary Amerine, who runs a hunting, fishing and horseback riding outfit in the Wyoming Range, praised the bill on behalf of Citizens Protecting the Wyoming Range as vital to protecting numerous wildlife species.
"It draws a circle around these mountains and says, oil and gas are important to our nation's energy needs, but not here," he said. "There are places that are too special to drill."
Claire Moseley, testifying on behalf of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, said the group opposes the bill. She said there are as many as 12 trillion cubic feet of natural gas under the Wyoming Range.
"We do support Sen. Barrasso's goal of preserving the natural beauty that is an integral part of Wyoming's heritage," she said. "However, we believe this can be achieved while preserving the access needed to develop oil and gas resources beneath the Wyoming Range."
Johnson said that within the proposed withdrawal area, there are 143 issued or pending oil and gas leases covering more than 197,000 acres, with 76 of those currently under production.
Here is the text of the governor's testimony Wednesday:
The Wyoming Range is appropriately named, as it truly is Wyoming's mountain range. While most of the nation thinks of Wyoming in the context of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, the citizens of the state more closely relate to the Wyoming Range and places like it.
As such, I thank Senator Barrasso for his initiative and for continuing the legacy of the late Senator Craig Thomas to protect the people's backcountry, while at the same time recognizing and safeguarding private property rights with his introduction of the Wyoming Range Legacy Act of 2007 (S. 2229).
Wyoming's Range
The Wyoming Range is part of the Bridger-Teton National Forest. It sits south of Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park and contains mountain peaks that rise over 11,300 feet in elevation. It is home to an abundance of wildlife including mule deer, elk, pronghorn and moose, along with three species of native cutthroat trout, sage grouse, wolverines and other sensitive species. The Range also provides critical habitat for the Canada lynx, a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
I am fond of saying that people do not choose to live in or visit Wyoming to see an opera - they live and come here because they love the outdoors. Outdoor recreation, hunting, fishing, clean air and open spaces are our birthright. We guard those few weekends of hunting season every fall as we do any other holiday. With its big game herds and world class fisheries, starting in the summer and lasting through November, seemingly all roads - from Rock Springs to Cheyenne to Newcastle and everywhere in between - lead to the Wyoming Range.
The Wyoming Range is also a popular area for other recreational activities like camping, hiking, bicycling, skiing and snowmobiling. The National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), an international wilderness education organization, uses the Wyoming Range as one of its winter and summer "classrooms." The 70-mile Wyoming Range National Recreational Trail, at more than 9,000 feet in elevation, runs through the heart of the Range, as does the 353-mile Wyoming Range Snowmobile Trail. For both the blue collar drilling hand from Pinedale and the white collar attorney from Riverton, the Wyoming Range is truly a land of multiple uses. Proving this point further, in addition to providing a rich hunting, angling and recreational heritage, the Range also supports public land grazing, timbering and oil and gas production, which are appropriately not affected by this legislation.
Natural Gas Development
In an age where carbon footprints are seemingly of more concern than drilling footprints, the energy portfolios of certain states, industrial users and utilities have become more "green" by shifting their energy supplies from coal to natural gas. While these attempts to manage carbon emissions are laudable, they have resulted in extreme pressure to develop natural gas reserves across the West and most markedly in Wyoming. As of 2007, almost 26 million acres of federal lands were open to oil and gas leasing in Wyoming - which represents roughly 86 percent of all federal lands in the state. Of that acreage, almost 14 million acres, or 52 percent of the lands open to leasing, were actually under lease. Of this nearly 14 million acres under lease, just less than 4 million acres were under production. On the almost 4 million acres of producing leases, the federal government has been quite efficient in achieving production from its leasehold. In 2006, more Applications for Permit to
Drill (APDs) were issued in Wyoming than all other states combined. In 1999, only about 500 APDs were processed, compared to more than 3,500 APDs in 2006. As a result, from 1997 through 2006, marketed production of natural gas nearly doubled in my state.
To be clear, the state, its counties and towns and its citizens have unquestionably benefited from this development. We have been more than happy to do our fair share to meet the nation's energy needs and, in the process, fill our state and local coffers. But as a result, our wildlife, small town way of life, clean air, water and soil and access to public lands and open space have been altered and stressed to a breaking point. At the end of the day, we must make sure that Wyoming is a place where people want to live long after the oil and gas companies have moved on. This means finding a balance. Protecting places like the Wyoming Range will help to strike that balance.
Why this bill? Why now?
The history of oil and gas leasing in the Wyoming Range and very recent actions by the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior illustrate why Congressional legislation is needed to protect the Wyoming Range as soon as possible. In 2004, the Forest Service contemplated leasing 175,000 acres for oil and gas development in the Wyoming Range. This met with enormous public outcry and opposition from Senator Thomas, other local and state elected officials, Wyoming businesses, outfitters, sportsmen, conservationists and myself. Citing the important and, in some cases irreplaceable, wildlife and recreational values sustained by the Wyoming Range, and given the significant energy development on surrounding BLM lands in northwestern Wyoming, we collectively asked the Forest Service to refrain from leasing.
In response, instead of listening to the public, the Forest Service only scaled back its lease offering. In 2005-2006 in a series of four lease sales, the Forest Service consented and the BLM offered 44,720 acres for lease. Conservation groups, sportsmen's groups, outfitters and homeowners protested the sales, citing numerous changed circumstances in the region since the early 1990s when the original leasing environmental assessments had been prepared. Although the Forest Service noted that circumstances had changed since the early 1990s (air quality impacts were now a problem, the reasonably foreseeable oil and gas development in the region was far greater than initially anticipated and the Canada lynx was now a federally listed species) it refused to prepare a new environmental analysis. The BLM, relying on the Forest Service's determination, ignored the lease sale protests. Many of the groups appealed and requested a stay from the Interior Board of Land Appeals ("IBLA"). The
IBLA found that the appellants were likely to succeed on the merits of their appeals and granted a stay on development that remains in place to this day. In a rare move, the BLM requested a remand of the cases, even though the IBLA was clear that the BLM and the Forest Service had the authority to cancel the leases if, upon review, the agencies decided the changed circumstances were significant enough that the leases should never have been issued in the first place.
It was these lease sales that served to rally the citizens of Wyoming to fight to protect the Wyoming Range. Local landowners, outfitters, sportsmen and anglers, nearly 30 different hunting and angling groups, business owners, labor union members, more than 60 trade unions, conservation groups, ranchers and others from around the state and nation who hunt, fish, snowmobile, horseback ride, camp, hike and sightsee in the Wyoming Range have banded together to seek passage of the legislation before you (S. 2229).
Given the contested outcome of the lease sales, the strong IBLA decision authorizing the agencies to cancel these leases outright and the legislation before Congress, it would make sense that the Forest Service slow down and use caution before making a decision about new leasing. The Bridger-Teton National Forest is currently in the process of forest plan revision and will be analyzing whether new leasing is appropriate on the forest in light of the extensive development occurring on nearby BLM lands. Surely one would think that the Forest Service would wait until that process resumes and could wait to see the outcome of this legislation before it moves forward with a decision.
Instead, the Forest Service, at a national level, has made this leasing decision a priority - putting the fate of the 44,720 acres on a fast-tracked process with an anticipated decision expected this September, ironically in the midst of the hunting season. To this end, just this month, the Forest Service published its Notice of Intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement to review the leasing decision with the proposed action to issue all of the contested leases. Stanley Energy, one of the companies that holds leases in this contested block, has already suggested that it might drill 200 wells from eight, 50-acre well pads in the area.
Conclusion
Estimates suggest that almost 12 trillion cubic feet of gas underlie the Wyoming Range. Those that favor drilling will proclaim that, in the interest of national energy security, they must have access to the area. In certain places, like those already leased and producing areas on the outer edge of the southern and central reaches of the Wyoming Range, drilling might be conscionable - and is fully within the realm of possibility even with the passage of S. 2229. In those areas, I would submit that the tightest constraints guide any development - with platinum-plated mitigation requirements and as small a drilling and production footprint as possible being absolutely and unequivocally required.
But in the rest of the Wyoming Range, including all of the currently unleased and contested acreage, leasing and development - no matter the volume of "technically recoverable reserves" - is wholly inappropriate. No measures of mitigation and no current or foreseeable drilling technologies are sufficient to protect these areas, especially given the fact that most of the Wyoming Range consists of steep slopes, narrow valleys and few flat spots other than those in the riparian bottomlands, which are and should be off limits to well pad construction. With the nature of the topography in the area, if development is allowed to proceed on well pads of normal size - no less 50 acre pads - the Wyoming Range will be made to look like it is home to a hilltopping coal mining operation. Hence the legislation before you.
Importantly, and in line with other strongly held Wyoming values related to private property rights, the legislation, as crafted, does not extinguish valid existing rights of leaseholders in the Wyoming Range. That said, it does reflect the public's beliefs about the area's highest and best uses. The legislation includes a process by which leaseholders could voluntarily sell or donate their leases for permanent retirement by the Forest Service, but this is an entirely voluntary process.
The people of Wyoming are proud of our natural resource producing heritage. From coal and trona miners to uranium producers and oil and gas operators, the backs of Wyomingites are strong, having long carried the nation's natural resources burdens. Now it is time for the nation to give us something back, to protect something that is near to our hearts: the Wyoming Range. We hunt there. We fish there. We hike and camp there. We want to ensure that we will be able to take our children and grandchildren to the same places to see the same big game herds, the same streams and the same mountains that we can see today.
I encourage you to advance this legislation. Like most of our endeavors in government, it is not perfect. But the existence of this legislation and more importantly this hearing, have forced the parties to seriously discuss this proposal. Discussions about the Wyoming Range have been ongoing for several years. It is only within the last ten days that any of the industry participants have seriously discussed protections for this area. Previously they have appeared to have relied on overly-friendly agency support in Washington D.C., and simply discounted Congressional and Wyoming state interests. There is no doubt room for future discussion, but in the absence of serious Congressional interest in the legislation, the proponents of drilling feel no need to be responsive.
Thank you Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee and especially Senator Barrasso.