By the OGJ Online Staff
WASHINGTON, DC, Apr. 5�A last-minute decision by the Clinton administration to restrict 58.5 million acres of federal land from development was �short-sighted� in light of tight energy supplies that have driven up fuel prices, Republicans from oil-producing states complained Wednesday at a congressional hearing.
�The previous administration felt OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) couldn�t set the price of crude oil like they did in the �70s and �80s, so why should they concern themselves about import dependence?� noted Rep. Barbara Cubin, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. Cubin held a joint oversight hearing with the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health on the energy effects of the �roadless� rule.
According to a Republican staff briefing paper, �due to the roads initiative, some badly needed energy resources within our National Forests will no longer be available for development.�
How badly the US needs that untapped oil and gas remains a matter of interpretation.
Existing leases, which account for about 6 million acres in the National Forest System, are not �materially� affected by the regulation, the US Forest Service testified. That includes about 759,000 acres of inventoried roadless areas considered to have high oil and gas potential. Current production from Forest Service land only represents 0.4% of total US oil and gas production, the agency asserted. About half of that production comes from the Little Missouri Grasslands, according to USFS.
The agency conceded, �interest may increase in response to increasing prices and demands. Although much of the increased development is expected to be offshore, a number of national forests and grasslands either have current leases, or have applications for permits to explore for natural gas.�
Yet the agency may not appreciate the full picture, opponents of the rule stressed: Cubin noted in her opening statement that the Forest Service plan did not have universal support from sister agencies. In a US Department of Energy funded-study completed last year, researchers from Arlington, Va.-based Advanced Resources International Inc. said an estimated (mean) 11.3 tcf of natural gas and 550 million bbl of oil could potentially underlie inventoried roadless areas. The vast majority of those resources are in the Rocky Mountain region, where the rule would shut-in an estimated 9.4 tcf.
At an assumed price of between $3-4/Mcf, the value of those natural gas reserves now closed to development ranges from $23 to $34 billion, Jeffrey Eppink of Advanced Resources told the committee.
Supporters of the Clinton-era rule lambasted this reasoning, arguing that the quantity of
�financially� recoverable oil and gas in inventoried roadless areas is very small and will have no impact on energy prices that are set on the world market.
�The oil and gas reserves that may affect energy prices already exist in discovered known reserves and in the growth of these reserves. Currently discovered reserves and expected reserves growth account for 42% of US onshore gas supplies,� said Wilderness Society Resource Economist Peter Morton. � It is these resources, the financially feasible gas resources in and around the already discovered reserves, that have the potential to impact short-term energy prices�not the unknown and hypothetical, small quantities of undiscovered gas resources in roadless wildlands far from existing pipelines.�
The Forest Service�s roadless rule is one part of a sweeping three-part road initiative published Jan. 12, 2001 in the Federal Register. Along with the �roadless� initiative, related regulations include a road management rule and transportation policy.
President George Bush delayed the effective start of those rules from Mar. 13, 2001 to May 12, 2001 to review the measures. The White House is widely expected to rescind or drastically reinterpret the regulations. Meanwhile, the states of Alaska and Idaho have filed suit to overturn the existing plan.