GILLETTE - Several environmental and energy efficiency groups have challenged U.S. leaders to resist what they say is a renewed push by the oil and gas industry to ease restrictions for energy development on public lands in the Rocky Mountain West.

The Wilderness Society, Union of Concerned Scientists and a handful of other groups conducted a telephone news conference Wednesday in anticipation of remarks by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who is expected to discuss the nation's tightening natural gas supply before the Senate Energy Committee today.

Panelists who took part in the conference said the oil and gas industry and key members of the Bush administration are falsely blaming the natural gas supply problem on environmental restrictions on public lands in the West.

Dave Alberswerth, of the Wilderness Society in Washington D.C., said a report by the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration indicates that 88 percent of recoverable natural gas on federal lands in the Rocky Mountain Region is open to oil and gas leasing and development, leaving only 12 percent off-limits in national parks, wilderness areas and other protected areas.

"Despite industry's and the Bush administration's assertion's to the contrary, the vast majority of oil and gas resources on the public lands of the Rocky Mountain West are - by the Bush administration's own study - available for leasing and development and very little is off limits for environmental reasons," Alberswerth said.

A Reuters reporter from Denver noted that Colorado-based oil and gas companies developing natural gas in Wyoming consistently express frustration over seasonal and other wildlife and environmental restrictions.

Alberswerth responded, asserting that environmental restrictions do add a layer of cost to development, but that's the trade off that allows the U.S. to have both energy development and environmental conservation on the same public lands.

Alberswerth suggested that all businesses try to cut the cost of doing business wherever they can, and right now the oil and gas industry sees the national attention on the current gas supply as an opportunity to cut costs on the environmental side of business.

"We don't need to compromise our environmental safety net to accommodate their financial goals," Alberswerth said.

Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., has scheduled a special "congressional field hearing" Saturday in Rawlins to further discuss the issue of oil and gas development on public lands. In press release this week, Cubin said producing energy and protecting the environment are not mutually exclusive goals.

"New technology allows us to produce energy more efficiently and we already have the most restrictive environmental protections of any nation on earth," Cubin said. "Unfortunately, government red tape is getting in the way of our efforts to supply American consumers with the energy they need."

Another panelist in Wednesday's news conference, Randy Udall, director of the Community Office for Resource Efficiency in Aspen, Colo., said some people view Rocky Mountain states as being apathetic to the nation's growing demand for natural gas. But the states are responding. Udall said Utah, Colorado and Wyoming have all increased natural gas production three-fold since 1985.

"More than half of the nation's gas now is coming from wells that are less than 3 years old," Udall said. "The opposite way to express it is that at least half of the gas that we are using today has to be replaced in the next three years, and many people in the gas industry recognize what a challenge it's going to be."

Rather than ease environmental restrictions, U.S. leaders ought to focus efforts on becoming more energy efficient and rapidly scaling up renewable energy production, Udall said.

"North America is never going to be self-sufficient in natural gas again. The U.S. is already the world's largest importer of natural gas. I don't think people realize that," Udall said.