U.S. petroleum groups urge NEPA reforms

Petroleum groups have told the U.S. Congress that federal administrators are using the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to stall oil activities on federal lands. They submitted testimony to a House resources committee oversight hearing on NEPA. The American Petroleum Institute, with five other oil associations, said, "Fear of litigation has forced federal agencies to seek 'litigation-proof' environmental impact statements (EIS), which leads to unnecessary analysis, cost,

April 6, 1998

4 min read

Petroleum groups have told the U.S. Congress that federal administrators are using the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to stall oil activities on federal lands.

They submitted testimony to a House resources committee oversight hearing on NEPA.

API testimony

The American Petroleum Institute, with five other oil associations, said, "Fear of litigation has forced federal agencies to seek 'litigation-proof' environmental impact statements (EIS), which leads to unnecessary analysis, cost, and delay. A lower confidence level should be satisfactory.

"There is a tendency in the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service to slow down the process simply because a project may be controversial, rather than moving forward with an efficient 'issue management' approach.

"Cooperating agencies do not always reflect an adequate understanding of the multiple-use mission of the BLM and Forest Service. Hence, they often try to force projects to comport with their own, narrower agendas."

And the oil groups said that when project proponents pay third-party contractors for EIS work, there is no obligation or incentive on the federal agency's part to streamline the work, improve efficiency, or otherwise reduce cost.

Rmoga view

The Rocky Mountain Oil & Gas Association said although no statutory changes are needed to "fix" NEPA, "there are many problems associated with the federal agencies' interpretation of NEPA."

It said that federal agencies have ignored direction from the Council on Environmental Quality to keep EISs short, thus "the EIS process is overly long, complex, and extremely costly. In fact, it would appear the process is also used to delay proposed projects in the hope that proponents will abandon them."

Rmoga urged Congress to require the Interior Department to formally adopt recommendations developed by its Green River Basin Advisory Committee in June 1996.

"The committee identified many flaws in the current NEPA process and developed a set of specific recommendations aimed at solving the problems," Rmoga said, adding that Interior has never directed BLM field offices to implement them.

States' view

Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer testified for his state and the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission. He urged Congress to give state and local governments a greater role in NEPA implementation.

Geringer said NEPA "takes too long, costs too much, spawns unending litigation and is so inconsistently implemented that each (federal) agency requires custom tailoring of its approach."

He said federal agencies sometimes disregard state jurisdiction and laws. "We have governing responsibilities under law that cannot and should not be set aside. We have shared and concurrent jurisdiction with the federal agency managers."

Operator's view

Randy Allen, general counsel for River Gas Corp., Northport, Ala., testified about his company's problems in developing coalbed methane leases in Carbon and Emery counties, Utah.

River Gas has 128,000 acres of leases in the area but has not been able to drill a single well on its federal tracts.

It filed a proposal with BLM in April 1994 to drill up to 1,000 wells. The 1-year, $200,000 process expanded to 3 years and $1.3 million before the EIS was completed last May.

Allen said, "No environmental groups opposed the project. Local sportsmen were concerned about potential impacts to deer and elk. Most of the opposition came from governmental employees, primarily from within the BLM.

"Early in the process field agents for BLM indicated that they opposed our proposal and (that) they would make the process as difficult as possible. As a result, the process quickly became adversarial."

Allen said the NEPA system gives free rein for federal employees to "kill proposed projects by requests for expansive data acquisition, simple stalling, and other tactics. These actions are allowed to happen without oversight and with no forum for project proponents to seek timely redress of abuses."