Western Energy Alliance members were fully aware that more significant federal onshore oil and gas policies are being developed in the nation's capital now than in the Rocky Mountains where the independent producers live and work. They still came in their 2015 Washington Call-Up to remind federal officials how such decisions can affect people and communities hundreds of miles away.
"I suppose we're getting used to it now we're in Year 7 of Barack Obama's presidency," Kathleen Sgamma, WEA vice-president, government and public affairs, told OGJ on Feb. 24. "It actually has improved."
The only bad time was in 2008-09 when everyone in the administration emphasized green energy "and oil and gas was road-kill in their rear-view mirrors," Sgamma said. "More people realize now we need oil and gas to run our cars and heat our homes. We're not getting the disrespect we got back then."
But there are concerns. The US Bureau of Land Management is developing hydraulic fracturing regulations for land it manages in states that already have their own rules, Sgamma noted. The administration said it wants to start limiting methane emissions from oil and gas operations. And BLM is trying to complete 98 habitat management plans for the Greater sage grouse to help the US Fish & Wildlife Service decide if the bird must be listed as a threatened or endangered species.
"It all has created general stagnation on public lands," Sgamma said. It's also politically driven, she added.
"BLM staff members in several states got their wrists slapped early on when they tried to approve oil and gas projects," she said. "It's gone on for years. Resource specialists who pushed renewable energy projects did much better. Now, routine [National Environmental Policy Act] approvals for even small-scale projects are made in Washington."
State, local efforts
FWS has until Sept. 15 to make its Greater sage grouse decision under a 2011 court settlement of environmental groups' lawsuits involving 290 so-called candidate species. "States and localities have been working to preserve its habitat for well over a decade," Sgamma said.
"There was an impressive level of collaboration on the Gunnison sage grouse, and it still got listed," she said. "Democratic commissioners on Colorado's Western Slope are furious because they put in so much work, and it still wasn't good enough."
Republicans became the majority in the US Senate as well as the House in 2014's midterm elections. "We're sad we lost most of the Blue Dog Democrats," Sgamma said. "Things seem to be more polarized. Many members still understand oil and gas issues, but not as many now on the Democrats' side of the aisle."