In 1996, President Clinton created an outcry in western states with the words:
NOW, THEREFORE, I WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by section 2 of the [Antiquities] Act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225, 16 U.S.C. 431), do proclaim that there are hereby set apart and reserved as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, for the purpose of protecting the objects identified above, all lands and interests in lands owned or controlled by the United States within the boundaries of the area described on the document entitled “Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument” attached to and forming a part of this proclamation
By presidential proclamation he set nearly 1,700 square miles of Bureau of Land Management lands in Utah off limits with his surprise designation of the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument and, with it, access to over 11 billion tons of recoverable, low sulfur, high btu (energy) coal. Several more such designations followed in what many felt was a War on the West.
A recently revealed Department of Interior “internal working document” has set off similar fire alarms across the West. It identifies BLM lands as potential sites for designation as new national monuments, as possibly meriting “special conservation” status or as targets of “land rationalization”. Unlike a national park or national wildlife refuge, these actions are carried out by the Executive Branch without any need for Congressional approval.
The Department of Interior document in question - reportedly drafted at the behest of Obama’s Interior Secretary Ken Salazar – identifies more than six times the land area locked up in the Grand Staircase designation and, like it, has the potential to thwart access to a wealth of natural resources including oil, gas, gold and timber. The document’s brief descriptions of the potential national monuments in AZ, CA, CO, MT, NM, OR, UT and WA does not include acreage figures for all of the14 BLM sites. The total for where figures are given is 13,535,000 acres, an area larger than Maryland and Delaware combined. In counties with land bases predominately held by the BLM, eliminating access to natural resources on these lands can be near mortal economic wounds.
For one Nevada site, the document’s narrative justifying its inclusion states that it is “…a center of climate change research…” while for another site it states that the possible national monument location “…contains 30% of the lesser prairie chicken habitat in southeastern New Mexico.” Two of the possible monument sites cover another 1,474,000 acres of Utah. Harkening back to the Clinton era national monument designation, Utah Representative Rob Bishop, the head of the Congressional Western Caucus in the House of Representatives, told his state’s largest paper, “We’ve been burned before, and I want to make sure we’re not burned again.”
While the document’s section addressing possible national monuments has garnered most of the attention, other sections address areas that may be suitable for “Conservation Designations” or fall under the heading “Cost Estimates: High Priority Land Rationalization.” Three areas are identified as possible targets for a conservation designation, one in Wyoming and two in Alaska. If a conservation designation is conferred upon one of the later, Bristol Bay, it could serve as a club for those seeking to stymie development of a mine in Alaska. The ore deposits there are estimated to contain 94 million ounces of gold and 72 billion pounds of copper. Opponents of developing the mine claim it is a threat to Bristol Bay.
Like the monuments and conservation designations, the “land rationalization” efforts would focus on western lands – CA, CO, ID, MT, NV, OR, UT and WY – and include states through which National Historic and Scenic Trails traverse. The document anticipates lands that would augment the trails being targeted with an “aggressive willing seller program”. For a land rationalization effort in the Upper Green River Valley of Wyoming, the document targets a “…stretch [that] features a small number of very large privately-owned ranches…” By the Interior Department’s own back of envelop calculations, the cost of Federal government absorbing just these Wyoming ranches would be around $2.4 billion.
Why, when we are broke and the Federal government already owns more land than the total area of Mexico and Spain combined, do we need to acquire more? Why do we need more in a state like Wyoming where the Federal Government already owns about half of everything? How is spending the equivalent of more than 50,000 times the median income of a Wyoming family to rid the state of a few “large private” ranches a good idea? In this economic climate what rational can the Obama Administration offer to spend tax dollars on these ranches or to lock up land that “contains 30% of the lesser prairie chicken habitat in southeastern New Mexico”? (Not to be confused with land harboring greater prairie chickens or with lesser prairie chicken habitat elsewhere in New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma.)
In the case of the lesser prairie chicken the document opines that putting this area off limits is the best chance to avoid adding the prairie chicken to the endangered species list, implying that by doing so the burdens of the Endangered Species Act – like putting land off limits – could be avoided. Elsewhere the document mentions promoting ecotourism and “unique” sailing and sea kayaking opportunities. Perhaps the millions of newly unemployed can spend their free time searching for lesser prairie chickens or sea-kayaking. Westerners are right to ring the alarm bells about War on the West II.
If Energy Freedom Day seems like a long time ago, it was. It’s been since September of 2008 since the Congressional restrictions on energy leasing in 85 percent of America’s territorial waters, which have been renewed annually since 1982, were allowed to lapse. Along with the White House restrictions rescinded by President Bush, it opened nearly all of our federally controlled waters for energy leasing. A lot has happened since, but there’s been no real movement forward on drilling.
The leasing process began with a comment period – extended six months by Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Vince Haley details the subsequent actions from the government:
“More than four months after the comment period ended, the Department of the Interior has failed to make any public announcement about the results, even though sources have told American Solutions for months the comments show a 2-1 advantage in support of offshore drilling.
It took American Solutions almost four months and the power of the Freedom of Information Act to finally uncover indirect confirmation that, out of over 530,000 comments submitted, pro-drilling comments outnumbered anti-drilling comments by a 2-1 margin.
In an email dated October 27, 2009, Liz Birnbaum, director of the Minerals Management Service, informs other Interior officials that a preliminary tabulation of the results of the comment period had not yet gone to Secretary Salazar, adding “[s]o the Secretary can honestly say in response to any questions that he’s [SIC] has not yet seen the analysis of the comments – staff is still working on it. I did, however, confirm to him the 2-1 split that these guys [at American Solutions] are emphasizing.”
46,573 people used The Heritage Foundation’s Free Our Energy site to submit comments to the Department of the Interior. In essence, the administration is saying: We’ll be transparent, except when it doesn’t behoove us to be.
The process of leasing and subsequent exploration and drilling takes a number of years. In fact, those opposed to drilling often argue that since it takes years for the oil to become commercially available, we shouldn’t be doing that. Of course, they’ve been saying that for decades and that oil could be on the market if we acted then.
Instead, logical personality would reduce the time period it takes for the drill to hit the ground. Part of the delays are due to multiple layers of regulatory red tape, and several opportunities for anti-energy activists to file administrative appeals and lawsuits. Several bills, including the Drill Now Act, the No Cost Stimulus and The American Energy Act attempt to do this. Any sound policy would:
• Permanently End Bans on Offshore Drilling in Atlantic, Pacific, Eastern Gulf of Mexico and Oil Shale Areas.
• Expedite Leasing Process: Allows the Mineral Management Service to being preleasing and leasing activities immediately, without the need to completely write a new 5-year leasing plan.
• Expedite Judicial Review of Environmental Lawsuits: Allow only 90 days to submit a legal case to U.S. District Courts. Any appeal of a district court can only be made in the U.S. District Court of Appeals in D.C. Limits judicial review for how the Secretary enforces laws.
Government inaction simply doesn’t make sense. Offshore drilling will create jobs and increase energy supply without cost to the taxpayer. It will create revenues for financially strapped state government and increase revenues for federal governments. President Obama said in his State of the Union address that we should make tough decisions about offshore drilling. It sounds like a pretty easy decision.