US President George W. Bush's administration is generally succeeding with its effort to streamline the public land drilling permit process, producers say. Delays still happen, but more often it's because of a judge or a state official rather than someone from the Department of the Interior.
Yet, as has been shown lately with some high-profile cases in New Mexico, the federal bureaucracy can still be a tough beast for a wildcatter to try and tame; it's a red-taped jungle out there.
Jicarilla District
Gov. Bill Richardson (D), a former secretary of energy in the administration of President Bill Clinton, last month called on the US Department of Agriculture's US Forest Service to reconsider a land-use proposal for the Jicarilla Range District of the Carson National Forest. Industry says the proposal unfairly limits drilling.
In a Dec. 29, 2003, letter to local forest supervisor Martin Chavez, Richardson said the USFS action could "easily threaten the development of close to 1 tcf of natural gas."
Richardson added that, about 800 wells have already been drilled in the Jicarilla District, part of the San Juan basin, and USFS's draft environmental impact study projects that another 700 wells will be drilled if new development is allowed to proceed.
But under USFS's proposal, close to 70% of those wells could not be drilled.
Richardson said that while he supports sensible constraints on exploration and drilling, "I also recognize we can't afford to close out areas like this." USFS is slated to make a final decision this May, but that timeline may slip; producers are lobbying the White House and Congress to force USFS to conduct a new environmental analysis.
BLM vs. USFS
Producers operating in the San Juan basin want to see more inter- agency cooperation on energy development.
They wrote the chief of the forest service and the White House Task Force on Energy Project Streamlining to initiate a review, similar to those under way by DOI's Bureau of Land Management.
Industry wants public land officials in Washington to review the permit process in the Jicarilla District and see how it compares with other USFS ranger districts and with various BLM field offices.
Still, producers concede there is only so much federal land managers can do to speed up the development process, even with support from the Congress and the White House.
BLM announced Jan. 6 a controversial plan 5 years in the making, allowing limited development in New Mexico's Otero Mesa grasslands. But many influential stakeholders oppose BLM's action, including environmentalists, sportsmen, and the governor.
BLM estimates that if its proposal moves forward, about 140 new wells will be drilled in the region, about 90 miles southeast of Las Cruces, NM. A 30-day protest period ends early next month; Richardson also has 60 days to review the drilling plan.
If BLM finalizes it, environmentalists say they will take the agency to court.