WASHINGTON -- Environmentalists say provisions in an energy bill that lawmakers plan to complete soon would codify Bush administration efforts to hand over public lands in the West to the oil and gas industry.
Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., and Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., helped write the provisions and say they are just trying to restore sanity to a process that is entangled in red tape.
The environmentalists and the Wyoming lawmakers are able to read the same words and come to different conclusions because they fundamentally disagree on how the existing laws should be interpreted and the impact of energy development on public lands.
The words that they are both focused on are part of the massive bill's "Oil and Gas" title.
"It's a number of different provisions that lumped together would lead to the conclusion that oil and gas development is the dominant use of federal public lands," said Anna Aurilio, U.S. Public Interest Research Group legislative director. "There is clearly nothing multiple use about these provisions."
Dave Albersworth, who handles Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issues for The Wilderness Society, shares Aurilio's concern.
"Wherever oil and gas exists, the intention is to make it the most important use," said Albersworth, who is a former Clinton administration official. "There is no overt place where that is stated, but if you read all of these provisions together they say that."
Aurilio and Albersworth said they are angry because for years Cubin, Thomas and other Western Republicans have responded to efforts to limit oil and gas development on public lands by arguing that the lands are intended not just for recreation, but rather for "multiple uses."
Cubin, Thomas and other Western Republicans said that the provisions are not evidence that they are singing a new tune. They say that the provisions restore balance to a federal policy that during the years of Bill Clinton's presidency had focused on locking up federal lands.
"They are absolutely wrong about that," Cubin said. "The fact is that the pendulum had swung so far that it made it impossible to explore for and develop oil and gas on public lands. All this does is bring the pendulum back to a reasonable place."
Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., said that environmentalists are "misusing" the term "multiple use."
"Clearly multiple use is something that they do not understand," Rehberg said. "They are misusing the term. We look forward to educating them."
Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., who was listening to what Rehberg was saying, chimed in, "Are the environmentalists for multiple use now?"
Thomas is somewhat baffled by the criticism.
"I don't agree with that at all," the former director of the Wyoming Rural Electric Association said. "This doesn't take away any regulations for environmental protection or permitting. It just speeds up the permitting process."
Industry officials support the provisions, and like Cubin and Thomas, cannot understand why the environmentalists are upset.
"I don't see anything that would gut the multiple use principle," said Marc Smith, executive director of the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States. "All I see is efforts to reduce bureaucratic delays. Whose interested are being served by bureaucratic delays? It is not helping the public because it is causing higher energy prices."
One of the provisions in question would create a pilot program that aims to speed up the pace at which applications for permits to drill for oil and gas are issued. The program would be applied to the Buffalo, Wyo., and Miles City, Mont., BLM offices.
Cubin said that the program is necessary because it takes too long for applications to be reviewed.
"It is supposed to take 30 days to get a permit to drill," Cubin said. "It now takes 60 to 75 days."
The oil and gas section of the bill also includes provisions that would prohibit drilling fluids from being considered pollutants of drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act and exempt oil and gas activities, including construction of drill pads, from the Clean Water Act.
Another provision in the bill would require the U.S. Geological Survey to identify various "restrictions and impediments" to the development of federal oil and gas deposits.
Environmentalists note that the Bush administration has already issued executive orders that require the permit process to be expedited, and instructing the U.S. Geological Survey to identify various "restrictions and impediments."
By putting these executive orders into law, the energy bill would make it impossible for future presidents to simply reverse the policies. In order to do that, new laws would have to be passed by Congress and signed by the president.
"If a future administration came along and decided they wanted a multiple use philosophy they could not do that," Albersworth said.
Bush administration officials said they had maintained the multiple use principle and would support legislation that codified their efforts.
"The environmentalists ignore reality and that reality is that energy development and protecting the environment are not mutually exclusive," Interior Department spokesman Eric Ruff said.
Join the Discussion