DENVER—The Obama Administration offered 22,000 more acres of public land in New Mexico today for industrial oil and gas development without working to protect an equal amount of land for future generations. Many of these acres were leased under a decades-old plan that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has found to be insufficient for the management of oil and gas resources, further highlighting problems with the oil and gas leasing system.
Prior to Wednesday’s lease sale in New Mexico and a similar sale held Tuesday in Montana, the total acres leased nationwide in 2013 was 462,400 acres, compared to 261,200 acres protected.
“Energy development is a part of public land management, but the federal government must strike a better balance between industrial drilling and protection. Washington’s failure to keep up with the times has pushed us away from equal ground by creating a dramatic chasm between development and conservation,” said Center for Western Priorities Policy Director Greg Zimmerman.‚
In June, the Equal Ground coalition launched a campaign to address this imbalance between energy development and permanent protection of public lands. Previous Administrations, both Republican and Democratic, were able to strike a balance between industrial development and protection. Under President Obama, oil and gas leasing on public lands more than doubled lands protected.
The New Mexico sale raises concerns about the BLM’s ability to adequately plan oil and gas drilling projects. Of the leases offered at Wednesday’s auction, over 11,000 acres are under the guidance of a resource management plan written in 1986. The BLM has admitted that the nearly three-decade-old plan is not sufficient for the management of oil and gas resources. In 2009, a court ruled that the BLM’s plan does not adequately consider how to balance the area’s multiple resource values, nor does it address impacts to critical water supplies. That has not stopped the agency from moving forward with leasing.
The situation surrounding the parcels in question bears a striking resemblance to a number of misguided oil and gas leases recently proposed in Colorado. There, the BLM has proposed a series of highly controversial lease sales adjacent to Mesa Verde National Park, Dinosaur National Monument, and within the North Fork Valley—a prized agricultural area—under the guidance of outdated management plans.