In a year when we’ve seen countless attacks on wilderness and America’s public lands, it came as a relief when the Department of Interior proposed to protect precious landscapes and Western watersheds from the ravages of a Big Oil Boondoggle in its just-released draft Oil Shale and Tar Sands Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement.

In that document, Interior supports a plan that will allow some lands to be leased for research and development (and if shown to be successful and environmentally safe, then commercial development), while protecting special places.  For this action, the Obama administration deserves praise for tackling the irrational oil shale giveaway plan left in place by the previous administration.

Tell Congress to stand with the Department of Interior on oil shale!

But now, friends of Big Oil are pushing a bill that would ignore the realities of the oil shale “industry” and roll back regulations to Bush-Era mayhem, opening iconic landscapes in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado to an industry that even some of its most ardent backers agree is not ready for primetime. Rep. Doug Lamborn’s (CO) “PIONEERS” bill (HR 3408) would open millions of acres of federal land to leasing for what amounts to a mad scientist’s experiment with what is likely the dirtiest and least efficient fuel on the planet.

Even sillier, House Republicans are using the excuse that this handout to the oil industry can somehow fund the transportation bill.  This is a terrible idea.  Importantly, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has concluded that the bill wouldn’t generate any significant revenue due to the oil shale industry’s lack of commercial viability.

Please tell Congress Oil Shale is an Oil Fail.

The Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement issued by the DOI isn’t perfect, but it takes the necessary cautious and skeptical approach we need for a technology that has failed time and again. Large scale commercial oil shale production would be disastrous to our already-strapped Western water supply, and we need to take a serious look at those consequences—especially before handing over the keys to some of America’s most iconic landscapes.

Snake oil is the only oil that shale has ever produced, and Lamborn and Boehner are coiled and ready to serve up more of it this week.

Contact your Representative and tell him/her to oppose commercial leasing for oil shale!

P.S. Today twelve local and national groups sent a letter to members of the House of Representatives urging Congress to approve Representative Jared Polis’ (D-CO) amendment #130 to H.R. 3408 to remove harmful and speculative oil shale provisions that endanger Western public lands and water supplies and do nothing to fund transportation projects or create jobs.  Read the letter by clicking here.

Posted by Richard Peterson-Cremer

A recently released report by Headwaters Economics highlights how Utah’s oil and gas industry is thriving and largely recovered from the 2008 recession.  The Headwaters Report is consistent with an opinion piece that ran in the Salt Lake Tribune this past Wednesday which notes that despite the rhetoric from state and federal officials, these are good times to be in the oil and gas business in Utah.

The Headwaters report also points out that Utah’s severance tax rate is the lowest of five intermountain west states surveyed.  In other words, the state’s effective 3.3% tax rate means that the Utah is not reaping all the benefits for its citizens that other states are seeing from this surge in oil and gas production.

It’s important to note that even as Utah has seen a significant uptick in oil and gas development and production, the level of conflict between the BLM, companies and conservationists has remained relatively low.  That’s in no small part due to reforms implemented by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar which has emphasized a leasing policy of “think first, then act” as well as focusing on development in less controversial places.

That’s not to say that there aren’t problem projects, companies and BLM field offices – there are!  The point is that energy development and wilderness protection are proving not be mutually exclusive.

For more on the Headwaters report, listen to a KCPW radio interview with Headwaters’ Mark Haggarty and Matt Garrington with the Checks and Balances Project by clicking here.

Posted by Steve Bloch

LTEs from Moab praise the Interior Department’s Master Leasing Plans

“As both an owner of a tourism-oriented business and as the mother of a young son, I was happy to read that the Department of Interior will be more closely scrutinizing specific areas in Grand and San Juan Counties before leasing them for oil, gas, and potash development.”  Read more: Moab Times-Independent – Leasing reform…

“Kudos to the Bureau of Land Management for its decision to think first and drill later as it prepares its master leasing plan for the Moab area. I know this is not a popular decision amongst some in our state who claim that temporarily deferring the ability to drill on particular parcels is a form of economic suicide.”  Read more: Moab Times-Independent – Look before you lease…

Remember the tale of Chicken Little?

“To hear Gov. Gary Herbert and Utah’s congressional delegation tell it, times have never been harder for energy companies operating on public lands in Utah. Hardly a day seems to go by without Sen. Orrin Hatch complaining that the Bureau of Land Management isn’t selling oil and gas leases fast enough, or Herbert imagining that the federal government is standing in the way of a robust energy sector. In other words, the sky is falling.

Don’t believe it. The reality is that energy development in Utah is brisk.

The facts speak for themselves. According to The Salt Lake Tribune, at the end of 2011 the state of Utah had a record high number of 10,300 producing oil and gas wells, the majority of which are found on public lands. What’s more, the Utah Division of Oil Gas and Mining reports that the number of drill permit approvals in 2010 and 2011 were two of the highest years for such approvals over the past 25 years. In 2011, about half of those permit approvals were on public lands.”  Op-Ed – The Salt Lake Tribune

Obama has done mostly the right thing on oil shale

“The BLM’s plan favors continued research and development of oil-shale technology, but no commercial leasing of 461,965 acres — 252,181 acres in Utah, 174,476 in Wyoming and 35,308 in Colorado. In addition, nearly 100,000 acres would be made available in eastern Utah for development of tar sands. It’s a far smarter policy than Bush’s. But Republicans are furious. Utah’s Governor Gary Herbert is fuming, the American Petroleum Institute is whining, and the entire Utah Congressional delegation wants the BLM decision scrapped.”  Read more – Daily Kos

Posted by admin

In a scathing rebuke to the Bureau of Land Management’s plans to offer a coal lease near Bryce Canyon National Park, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service sent the BLM extensive comments calling on the agency to reject the proposal out of hand.

The National Park Service told BLM that “[b]ased on the proximity of the Alton Coal Tract to Bryce Canyon National Park and the combined impact to air resources/air-quality related values, night sky resources at the park and in the region, and the park’s natural soundscape, the NPS considers large scale coal extraction, as proposed in Alternatives B and C, an activity that could and will likely result in negative impacts to park resources and visitors . . .   Given these concerns and the fact that several key resource impact analyses are incomplete, missing or not in accord with national standards, the NPS recommends to BLM that Alternative A (No Action) is our preferred alternative at this juncture.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service was equally adamant in its opposition to coal leasing: “We recommend that you reject the lease application and withdraw the tract for sale.  We believe that mining activity under any of the action alternatives will result in the extirpation of the Alton-Sink Valley greater sage-grouse lek and the Alton greater sage grouse population.”

The Environmental Protection Agency told the BLM that it could not comment on the deficient draft environmental impact statement and called on BLM to prepare a supplemental draft EIS for another round of public review and comment.

In addition to these outspoken comments from federal agencies, the BLM received hundreds of thousands of comments from concerned citizens around the country opposing the proposal to lease this coal tract.

And all of this attention hasn’t fallen on deaf ears – the Alton coal story has been told over the past week in the Los Angeles Times; Washington Post; Atlanta-Journal Constitution; Salt Lake Tribune; and ThinkProgress.

There seems little question that the BLM – and the Obama administration – has heard loud and clear that this proposal should be shelved under “terrible ideas never again to see the light of day.”  With your help we will work to make sure that this is the case.

Posted by Steve Bloch