The Bureau of Land Management is offering energy companies a trade-off in the Powder River Basin: Don't drill in high-quality sage grouse habitat, and the land management agency will prioritize drilling permits elsewhere.

"This is not a prohibition. We're just setting the bar higher," said Steven Hall, spokesman for the agency.

A Wednesday press release from the BLM said decisions about new energy development in high-quality sage grouse habitat will consider recent peer-review findings on the impacts of energy development on sage grouse.

Earlier this summer, the BLM accepted the results of more than five years of studies performed by University of Montana researchers, headed by professor David Naugle. The work was vetted through the peer review process and published in the industry's top journals,

Among Naugle's findings:

* Sage grouse breeding grounds within development areas are predicted to disappear, on average, within four years of coal-bed methane development.

* From 2001 to 2005, sage grouse counted in coal-bed methane fields declined by 82 percent (at a rate of 35 percent per year), while grouse numbers outside active areas declined by 12 percent (3 percent per year).

According to the studies, the current density and pace of coal-bed methane development is devastating sage grouse populations in the Powder River Basin, "over and above those of habitat loss caused by wildfire, sagebrush control, or conversion of sagebrush to pasture or cropland."

In response to those findings, the BLM has identified "high-quality sage grouse habitat areas," planning areas that contain relatively intact sage grouse habitat in the Powder River Basin. The agency said it did so in cooperation with researchers, industry and other state and federal agencies.

The areas cover 346,155 acres, or about 7 percent of the entire Powder River Basin.

The changes will affect 13 oil and gas operators and one electrical power provider, the BLM says.

Hall emphasized that drilling and development permits within high-quality sage grouse habitats will go through National Environmental Policy Act analysis that incorporates Naugle's research, suggesting that energy companies might want to amend their current permit applications to avoid those areas.

For energy companies with pending permit applications for activities in high-quality sage grouse habitats, the new policy directs the BLM Buffalo Field Office to prioritize applications for projects outside those high-quality habitats, to replace proposed projects inside the habitats.

That's "to help ensure that development may continue and lessen impacts to industry and workers," the BLM said.

In particular, Hall said, the Buffalo Field Office will look for innovative ideas for projects proposed inside those high-quality habitats.

The BLM is a participant in Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal's sage grouse committee, appointed after the governor's June sage grouse summit in Casper.

"We want to ensure that we meet our obligations as federal land managers, and not preclude any of the innovative ideas or plans that may come out of the governor's working group," said Bob Bennett, BLM's Wyoming director.

John Robitaille, vice president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, said the energy industry acknowledges the BLM's concerns about sage grouse, but is continuing research efforts that may very well dispute Naugle's conclusions.

Robitaille said he wasn't sure how BLM would implement prioritizing permits outside high-quality sage grouse habits and how that might affect the orderly development of energy resources in Wyoming. He suggested that Wyoming needs "more than one researcher's opinion" in setting rules and regulations for the energy industry.

Erik Molvar, a wildlife biologist with the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance in Laramie, said he supports the concept of drilling away from high-quality sage grouse habitat.

"It is better than drilling as fast as they can (in that habitat)," he said.

Cara Eastwood, press secretary to Gov. Dave Freudenthal, said the governor was encouraged by this announcement from the BLM.

Bob Budd, executive director of the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resources Trust and leader of the governor's sage grouse working group, said the new BLM procedure "isn't revolutionary or onerous," but acknowledged the devil will be in the details.

Gene George, a geologist consultant to many energy companies in Wyoming, said he doesn't understand why the BLM would propose this new policy, when Wyoming Game and Fish statistics do not bear out Naugle's research. George noted that the policy has not emerged from normal administrative practices, with no public comment.