Jim Baca has issued more than a few oil-drilling leases in his time. The former
director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and commissioner of New Mexico's
public lands understands the nuances of the business.
But Baca is also a Westerner with a deep regard for its natural treasures,
such as the rugged Otero Mesa desert grasslands in his home state. Baca is angry
enough about the Bush administration's pro-development energy policy that he
has embarked on a national tour to rally support for a more balanced approach.
"Their vision for the West begins in the oil field and ends at the pump,"
Baca said.
While much of the controversy has focused on the plan to drill in Alaska's
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Baca wants to make sure Americans are aware
of the potential environmental damage in the lower 48 states.
"Some of this is just as bad or worse that what we saw attempted in Alaska,"
Baca said during a recent visit to The Chronicle. "There are some really
special places that are going to be threatened."
Otero Mesa, where the oil and gas industry has its eyes on 460,000 acres that
have been proposed as wilderness, is one such site. The administration has been
sympathetic to the industry's general complaint that too many regulatory barriers
are keeping them from the estimated 137 trillion cubic-feet of natural gas and
several billion barrels of oil beneath federal lands in the Rocky Mountain States.
The problem with the development-oriented Bush approach is that even a large-scale intrusion on public lands in the West would not bring the nation significantly closer to energy independence.
Published in the San Francisco Chronicle 6-7-2002.