White House Puts the West on Fast Track for Oil, Gas Drilling

[Q]

Published on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times

White House Puts the West on Fast Track for Oil, Gas Drilling

by Alan C. Miller, Tom Hamburger and Julie Cart

 
WASHINGTON — Placing a heavy emphasis on energy production in the American West, the Bush administration has moved aggressively to open up broad areas of largely unspoiled federal land to oil and gas exploration.

The administration has pressed for approval of new drilling permits across the Rocky Mountains and lifted protections on hundreds of thousands of acres with gas and oil reserves in Utah and Colorado. In the process, it has targeted a number of places prized for their scenery, abundant wildlife and clean water, natural assets increasingly valuable to the region's changing economy.

Soon after taking office in 2001, the Bush White House set up a little-known task force that acts as a complaint desk for industry, passing energy company concerns directly to federal land management employees in the field. Although the creation of White House task forces is commonplace, experts on the executive branch say it is unusual to have one primarily serving the interests of a single industry.

In addition, the Bureau of Land Management has been pushed to issue drilling permits at a record pace for three of the last four years, an increase of 70% since the Clinton administration.

Internal memos and interviews show senior administration officials have directed federal employees to be responsive to industry, commended offices that approved large numbers of drilling permits and chastised those that were slow.

The effort is so intense in the oil- and gas-rich Rockies that some Bureau of Land Management employees there have taken to calling the region "the OPEC states."

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0825-04.htm

[Pallas180]

1. I think it's time to take a national referundum vote on

whether all oil in the United States should be nationalized.

Take that you bushards.

[sangh0]

2. There's an article in todays NY Times

title "Energy Companies Don't Use Half of Federal Land They Lease "

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. I bet they do.

Perhaps it's listed under Write-offs.

[TexasBushwhacker]

4. This should passed on to every undecided voter

I don't think you have to be a bleeding heart liberal or a Democrat to want to conserve Federal lands. Once you give those leases away, that land is gone forever. I sent this to a friend who lives in Colorado and considers herself middle of the road and she was AGHAST!