Sweating it Out in D.C.
As the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) continued its 11th-hour scramble to rework its deservedly beleaguered draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for 51,000 CBM wells in the basin, WOC and our conservation partners took our message to Washington.
In late July, on a sweltering day that made me question the sanity of my decision to move to D.C., I, along with representatives from the Natural Resource Defense and Powder River Basin Resource Councils, met with BLM Director Kathleen Clarke and other Department of Interior officials.
We reiterated serious concerns previously expressed in a number of administrative and legal appeals filed with the department. The DEIS is seriously flawed, we told Director Clarke and her department colleagues. Despite the BLM's obligation to study a full range of development alternatives for the basin, the agency failed to do so. In addition, the DEIS neglected to consider the best available technologies to lessen CBM development impacts and wholly ignored landowner protections.
We got our point across as, somewhat surprisingly, Director Clarke asked us for our vision of responsible development, in an effort to avoid years of litigation and broker a deal with industry. Of course, WOC, national and regional conservation groups and affected landowners have been providing the BLM with a blueprint for balanced development for several years, and we will continue our campaign to ensure responsible development until the BLM finally sees the light.
On to Cheyenne
Now, Cheyenne seems an unlikely venue for decisions about CBM development issues that are the responsibility of the Interior Department. Unless, of course, you are Pennaco Energy and the Petroleum Association of Wyoming (PAW). Pennaco sued in Wyoming federal court (joined by PAW as an intervenor) to overturn our April victory, in which the Interior Department's Board of Land Appeals (IBLA) held that federal oil and gas leases to be used for CBM extraction in the basin were sold in violation of federal law. The good news is that the court recently granted a motion to intervene brought by WOC and other conservation groups, which will enable us to mount a solid defense of IBLA's decision.
Interior Schizophrenia
At the same time, lawyers for the Interior Department (named as a defendant in the federal lawsuit) are desperately trying to convince IBLA to reverse itself. Ironically, the department's recent pleading conceded what we've been saying for some time: "While the [April 26, 2002] decision concerns three leases, these three are not unique. Thousands of leases were issued within several months before and after these three leases, with the same level of NEPA analysis. Accordingly, the decision potentially calls into the question the validity of thousands of oil and gas leases issued in recent years in the most productive oil and gas region managed by the BLM. The area is a centerpiece for new oil and gas development in President Bush's National Energy Policy."
Remember when the Interior Department, as well as industry, downplayed our April victory, claiming that it only applied to a few leases? They seem to be taking IBLA's decision -- and us -- far more seriously now.
You Get What You Pay For
We've assumed all along that the industry-biased DEIS for 51,000 CBM wells in the basin was prompted by the BLM's zeal to implement the Bush Administration's fast-tracked, study-free National Energy Policy. That's certainly partly true.
What we didn't know, until recently, is who contracted with Greystone Consulting to produce the DEIS. Documents reveal that a committee of industry representatives and CBM operators selected Greystone to conduct the study. One member of that committee was from Western Gas Resources (WGR). WGR's committee representative at the time now works at National Environmental Strategies, the lobbying group formerly headed by CBM industry insider Steve Griles, now Deputy Secretary of Interior. One of Griles' clients was none other than WGR.
Considering these connections, the pathetic DEIS makes perfect sense. You get what you pay for: a document so seriously flawed and pro-industry that the Environmental Protection Agency's Region 8 ordered the BLM to literally start over. As we wrote in the last issue of Frontline, after we shed light on this obvious conflict of interest, national media coverage exposed the Interior Department's fox-in-the-henhouse sweetheart deal.
WOC will work hard to ensure that the final EIS and future CBM development in the Powder River Basin proceeds with protections for the basin's landowners and Wyoming's environment. |
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