CHEYENNE - A coalition of conservation groups dedicated to preserving public lands for hunting and fishing said Monday that the government should tighten rules for oil and gas development in the Rocky Mountain West.

Sportsmen for Responsible Energy Development released a list of recommendations that members said would allow for energy development in the resource-rich region without sacrificing wildlife and water resources.

Group members said they're concerned that public discontent over high gasoline prices could result in management practices that prioritize the development of energy sources while overlooking other uses of federal lands.

"While there is little to no relationship between the price of gasoline and development of natural gas on public lands, our rush to produce short-term energy supplies can have a profound effect on the fish and wildlife habitats and water supplies that define the West," said Chris Wood, Trout Unlimited's chief operating officer.

Sportsmen for Responsible Energy Development wants federal agencies to include mitigation and reclamation practices in all leasing and development decisions. It also called for making the energy industry "accountable for the costs of oil and gas development."

Marc Smith, executive director of Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, said the oil and gas industry is already "the most regulated industry in the world."

The Rocky Mountain region is the largest onshore production area in the United States, producing 25 percent of the nation's natural gas supply, he said. Still, oil and gas development occupies less than 1 percent of federal lands in the region, Smith said.

"Oil and natural gas development has been occurring for over 100 years in the Intermountain West and continues to be a small and temporary impact," he said.

But the sportsmen's group said the impact of energy development on fish and wildlife can't be underestimated. The group cited the decline of the mule deer population near Pinedale in western Wyoming, a hotbed of natural gas activity, and risks to fish in Montana's Tongue River watershed resulting from coal-bed methane production.

Drilling on federal public lands has increased 260 percent since 1999, the sportsmen's group said, citing U.S. Interior Department figures. During the same time, budgets for the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service have remained flat or declined, Wood said.

The sportsmen's coalition was formed in January by the National Wildlife Federation, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and Trout Unlimited. Representatives of the group were in Washington, D.C., this week to pitch their recommendations to congressional leaders and the campaigns of presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama.

John Baughman, former director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, said the nation has a history of imposing regulation changes on industries such as grazing, logging and mining, when those industries have placed a high demand on using public lands.

"The time has come to call a little bit of a time-out and get things more in order," said Baughman, a member of the sportsmen's group. "If we don't do it right, if we don't do it better, we're going to see some sort of backlash that's going to be a bigger impediment to oil and gas development."

The group's recommendations also include removing exemptions from the Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water acts for energy development; implementing new measures for monitoring the effects of oil and gas development; re-emphasizing "multiple-use management" of federal lands; and making sure development decisions are based on up-to-date scientific information.

The group also wants to reduce the standard length of an energy lease from 10 years to five years to allow for more public participation in decisions regarding drilling projects.

Smith said that would result in less domestic energy development.

"It's an all-out sprint for companies to explore and develop natural gas on federal lands within the current 10-year time frame," he said.