The Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States on Aug. 28 charged that governmental red tape and environmentalist hindrances are the primary causes of lease development delays, and it urged Democrats to cease the inflammatory and erroneous claim that US producers are just “sitting on” 68 million acres of leased land as the fall campaigns get under way.
“This claim is simply not true,” IPAMS Executive Director Marc W. Smith said, adding that US House Democrats—from Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) to Chief Deputy Whip Diana DeGette (Colo.)—continued repeating the false allegation as their party held its national convention in Denver.
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-W.Va.) originally used the 68 million-acre figure on June 12 to justify his proposed “Use it or lose it” bill which would bar leaseholders from bidding on new tracts unless they demonstrated that they were diligently developing what they already held (OGJ July 28, 2008, p. 25).
Republicans have charged that the number came directly from environmental organizations. The Wilderness Society said on May 29 that oil and gas producers were only drilling 11.6 million acres, or 25%, of the nearly 44.5 million acres leased from the US Bureau of Land Management, but the figure did not include offshore leases.
“Companies are doing all they can to develop federal energy resources, but a lease is not a green light to drill: It’s the first step in a long, expensive process that is fraught with bureaucratic red tape and protests and lawsuits by environmental groups determined to stop domestic energy development. In fact, this year 100% of BLM lease sales in our region have been protested,” Smith said on Aug. 28.
He called a federal oil and gas lease “no more than a definite maybe” because a producer “might” get through environmental analyses and clear regulatory hurdles, “might” get permission to drill, and “might not” see the project delayed by lawsuits.
“Industry is in a classic Catch-22 situation whereby the government has created a cumbersome process that takes years to complete, environmental groups exploit the process to throw up legal roadblocks at every stage, and then Congress and the environmental lobby turn around and blame the industry for not ‘diligently drilling,’” the IPAMS official continued.
“If Congress is really concerned about undeveloped leases, it should pass regulatory reforms that ensure government agencies issue permits and environmental analyses within reasonable timeframes and curb the abuses of frivolous lawsuits and protests designed to slow natural gas development,” he maintained.
