WHITNEY ROYSTER Star-Tribune environmental reporter with wire reports | Posted: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 12:00 am
Hoping to ride the wave of concern resulting from Gulf Coast hurricanes, U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin and other congressional Republicans are trying again to loosen some restrictions on oil and gas development.
The proposals didn't make it in the recently approved energy bill, but supporters say Hurricanes Katrina and Rita - which hit some energy suppliers on the Gulf Coast - show the need to eliminate some environmental restrictions if the domestic energy supply is rattled.
"The energy bill was a good step, but it was just a first one," Cubin's press secretary, Joe Milczewski, wrote in an e-mail Tuesday. "There often comes a point in debates like this when you can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Some of these proposals did come up during the energy bill debate, and some of them were even in the House passed version of the bill, but the political reality was that the votes weren't there in the Senate to get the bill to the president….
"The hope is that events of the past few months will awaken people to the core problems affecting America's energy security."
The bill, set for committee review this week with a possible House vote as early as next week, calls in part for an end to seasonal stipulations - such as big game winter closures - for industry in times deemed by the president as a "significant adverse effect on the supply of domestic energy resources."
The measure, pushed by House Resources Committee Chairman Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., and supported by Cubin, also would suspend legal challenges to energy lease decisions, and would force private landowners to comply with industry when subsurface minerals were at stake.
Peter Aengst with the Wilderness Society called the bill "a wish-list for industry."
"The main concern is that we have a system of checks and balances where we allow oil and gas development, but don't let it go to such an extreme that it trashes other values," such as air quality, water quality, habitat and wildlife, he said. "This bill basically would put in place measures that would fundamentally take away (those) checks and balances."
Aengst said the 168-page bill includes many provisions thrown out from the original energy bill, because they were too extreme.
Not all the exemptions would require an emergency. The bill would approve the use of private workers paid by the gas industry to process permits for drilling on public lands and would bar appeals of drilling decisions by the Bureau of Land Management.
And the legislation would seek to encourage oil shale production in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming by reducing the amount that producers would have to pay the government for the oil they extract.
The legislation is unlikely to increase oil or gas supplies in the near future. Federal regulators are already approving oil and gas wells in Colorado and other Western states faster than industry can drill them.
The BLM, which controls much of the West's drilling land, approved more than 6,000 wells last year. Producers drilled fewer than 4,000.
But Bruce Hinchey, president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, said just because something is leased doesn't mean it will be drilled tomorrow.
"It's usually years before you get the permit," he said. "Yeah, there may be a lot of leases out there, but it takes a long time to get them drilled. I don't see that as anything but the way you do business with the federal government."
He said not all leases will be drilled unless they are studied through seismic activity to see if they are economically viable.
Hinchey said he had not heard of the Pombo bill, but, "Certainly anything we can do to help get access to areas that have oil and gas is good." He said lifting of seasonal restrictions has been eyed by Shell, Questar and others in the Pinedale Anticline, and some restrictions have been lifted.
Those restrictions, Hinchey said, create an "up and down cycle" for industry, making it difficult for employees, towns and businesses.
He said companies are adept at protecting the environment while extracting energy, saying everyone is concerned with mitigating impacts.
Pombo's legislation, scheduled for a committee vote Wednesday, is part of a multipronged GOP effort to cut back environmental regulation in the wake of the storms.
Bush on Monday urged Congress to clear away the "regulations and paperwork" that he says delay construction of oil refineries. And House Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, has proposed legislation encouraging new refineries.