Vast Areas of American West Open to Oil and Gas

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, August 26, 2004 (ENS) – Oil and gas companies have had no shortage of access to public lands in the West during the past two decades but this access has had little effect on the nation's energy supply, according to research released Tuesday by a research group based in Washington, DC.

The study by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found the federal government has leased or offered 229 million acres of public and private land in 12 Western states for oil and gas drilling since 1982. The total land leased or offered covers an area greater than the combined size of Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.

The analysis calls into question the position held by the Bush administration that energy development has been stalled because energy companies have been denied access to land.

The study included leases in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

"Far from being blocked from access to the West, these numbers show that this industry controls the West," said EWG analyst Dusty Horwitt. "If we want to break our dependence on Middle East oil, we need to move this economy to renewable energy sources, quickly and decisively."

The Bush administration has approved a slew of controversial leases on public lands, including some on the boundaries of Dinosaur National Monument. (Photo courtesy Park Service)

EWG analysts say this rate of production amounts to an average of 3.6 days per year of oil and 14.8 days per year of natural gas.

The study notes that since 1982, U.S. dependence on foreign oil has doubled and dependence on foreign natural gas has tripled.

Some 56 percent of oil consumed in the United States and 15 percent of natural gas come from foreign sources.

The report finds some 45 million acres are currently being leased.

It says the amount of acres newly leased each year has steadily declined since the 1980s, "probably because the government has already offered most of the energy rich land."

The report notes that a 2003 study by three federal agencies indicated that access is not a problem for the remaining available energy.

Crew starts to install an oil rig by lining a conductor hole with pipe. (Photo courtesy OSHA)

EWG's report also criticizes the White House for removing environmental restrictions to drilling on many public lands and for pursuing oil and gas projects in environmentally sensitive areas.

It says the administration has eased restrictions on drilling on some three million acres of land under the authority of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and has proposed easing restrictions on 42 million additional acres under its plan to relax a federal rule that protects roadless areas of the national forests.

"In the aggregate, all onshore drilling operations on public lands managed by the Department of Interior account for just 10 percent of our domestic production of natural gas, and five percent of domestic oil production," the according to EWG's report. "For increments in production barely measurable, the administration is approving or considering drilling proposals on some of the last best Western lands."

Critics contend EWG's analysis is misleading and is a thinly veiled political attack on the Bush administration.

"It is half of the picture at best," said Brian Kennedy, spokesman for House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, a California Republican.

The analysis equates leasing to permitting, Kennedy said, and does not take into account drilling that has been delayed by the federal bureaucracy and by legal challenges by environmental groups.

President George W. Bush has acted to streamline federal permitting and ease environmental restrictions, but says passage of the energy bill is needed to give companies the certainty and incentives they need to boost production. This bill has been stalled in Congress since last November.

Drilling proponents say new technologies limit the environmental impacts of natural gas drilling operations. (Photo courtesy Energy Department)

Earlier this month Vice President Dick Cheney told an Arkansas audience that the nation continues to increase consumption of oil and gas but is not "producing enough at home."

"We have taken large chunks of the country and put it off limits to any kind of exploration or development," Cheney said. "We do not drill off the East Coast, we do not drill off the West Coast, we do not drill in Alaska. Large parts of the Rocky Mountain West are off limits. The technology has gotten so good that, frankly, we can develop those kinds of resources without doing any environmental damage - and that includes the ANWR in Alaska."

Although the controversy over drilling on public lands is playing out across the West, ANWR has become the poster child in the debate for both sides.

Proponents say the refuge could produce 1.5 million barrels of oil a day and would create jobs for Alaskans. But estimates vary as to how much oil and gas can be economically retrieved and how development will impact the environment.

Environmentalists consider the pristine area a national environmental treasure and say tapping its oil supply would make little impact on the U.S. energy equation.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has repeatedly pledged not to allow drilling in ANWR and says the administration's policies on ANWR and other public lands reflect its close ties to the oil and gas industries.

"The centerpiece of the administration’s energy policy - drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - will damage the environment without providing meaningful protection from high oil and gasoline prices," Kerry said.

The administration has narrowly failed to muster the votes to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the issue of oil and gas drilling on public lands could influence some voters on November 2.