November 17, 2008 - The head of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team says the new administration will reverse a Bush administration decision to allow oil and natural gas drilling on millions of acres of environmentally sensitive federal lands in Utah.
In an interview on Fox News November 9, John Podesta said Obama would take executive action to reverse a number of decisions the Bush administration has taken in its waning days.
"They want to have oil and gas drilling in some of the most sensitive, fragile lands in Utah that they're going to try to do right as they - walking out the door. I think that's a mistake," Podesta said.
Podesta did not specify what Utah energy-development plans he was referring to.
But on October 31, the Bureau of Land Management finalized five resource-management plans for parts of Utah, making more than 80% of the areas' 8.65 million acres available to some form of oil and gas drilling.
The move has attracted criticism from environmental groups, some lawmakers and the National Parks Service for potential damage to pristine wilderness areas.
In addition, last November 11, BLM's Utah state office posted a proposed list of parcels for the quarterly oil and gas lease sale scheduled for December 19 in Salt Lake City.
The sale includes 241 proposed oil and gas parcels totaling 359,450 acres.
The National Parks Service has called on BLM to remove from the oil and gas lease sale a number of the proposed leases that are close to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks and the Dinosaur National Monument.
The service is concerned that energy development in these areas could have negative impacts on air, water and wildlife.
BLM and the Parks service plan talks to resolve their dispute.
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"On a number of areas, you see the Bush administration even today moving aggressively to do things that I think are probably not in the interest of the country," Podesta said on Fox News November 9.
Podesta said Obama can reverse some of those policies through executive orders, which require no congressional action.
"I think we'll see the president do that to try to restore the - a sense that the country is working on behalf of the common good," Podesta said.
But Kathleen Sgamma, director of government affairs at the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, expressed concern over Podesta's comments.
"At a time when our nation is trying to address climate change and trying to move toward a more renewables mix in the energy picture, politicians are making it more difficult to go after our natural gas resources," Sgamma told Platts in an interview.
Sgamma said that while IPAMS is looking forward to working with the Obama administration, the group worries that Podesta's comments could dissuade companies from bidding on the upcoming Utah lease sale.
"We're concerned that operators will be a bit reluctant to go after leases, and [that the sale will] not bring in as much revenue for the federal government because of that uncertainty," she said.
In the meantime, the dispute between the BLM and the Parks Service continues to brew over a number of leases included in the planned sale.
Mike Snyder, Parks Service's regional director, told Platts November 12 that the service had asked BLM to pull upwards of 45 parcels from the sale that are located in the vicinity of the national parks or Dinosaur National Monument.
Snyder said he asked BLM to go forward with the lease sale, minus the parcels in question, "to give us adequate time to review and analyze," those parcels.
He said that if the Parks Service then decided that it had no objection to the inclusion of those parcels, the BLM could add them in its next least sale to be held in the first quarter of 2009. However, the BLM declined, he said.
"Their response was they could not defer until the next quarter," he said.
Snyder said it was unusual for the BLM to not provide the Parks Service with a complete list of the parcels to be offered, at least 90 days in advance of a lease sale.
Environmental groups, meanwhile, applauded Podesta's comment about Obama using an executive order to derail the Bush administration's plan to allow oil and gas drilling in the Utah tracts.
"We're encouraged that some of the activities of the administration in the waning days are going to be scrutinized," said Stephen Bloch, conservation director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. "This decision by BLM to sell oil and gas leases in what most people would agree are some of Utah's most spectacular public lands is a mistake."
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