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Salazar attacks BLM leases

Senator questions director on process during panel hearing

Kim Last, Scripps Howard News Service

Published June 28, 2006 at midnight

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WASHINGTON - Ten months after the enactment of the Energy Policy Act, the Bureau of Land Management is facing scrutiny over arranging oil and gas leases in Colorado without adequate public input.

This issue came to light Tuesday when Kathleen Clarke, director of the Bureau of Land Management, testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

One of the purposes of the Energy Policy Act, which President Bush signed in August, is to combat the growing dependence on foreign energy in part by increasing production in the Rocky Mountain region. The BLM is responsible for managing the oil and gas resources on federal lands.

Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., demanded that Clarke discuss how the BLM determines its lease-granting process and to consider the public's views before finalizing any arrangements.

This comes in the wake of the BLM's plan to lease public lands for oil and gas exploration in the Grand Junction-Palisade area, despite public concern about the effects on the area's watershed.

"I am increasingly concerned about the BLM's rush to lease every acre of land as quickly as possible without regard to local communities," Salazar said. "This rush is often at the expense of local communities with real, substantive concerns as to how this activity will affect their communities and the natural heritage of their area. I am further alarmed at the BLM's willingness to brush these concerns aside and the contentious atmosphere that is being created."

Clarke stressed that the BLM uses a performance-based standard to determine its leases. She also said that all lease decisions under protest are being reviewed. "We are moving ahead with visions of sitting with the community to determine what it is that we care about in the area and what are the resources that are important to us," she said.

By the end of the summer, the BLM is expected to announce plans for all oil and gas leases in the state, including those for companies to drill for natural gas on the top of the Roan Plateau.