EDITORIAL

Lands in Need of Care

June 1 st , 2004

It was clear from the moment they took power that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were determined to greatly accelerate oil and gas drilling on the public lands of the West. Driven by a belief that energy independence could be achieved by aggressive exploitation of the public domain, the administration set its sights on doubling the number of wells on lands controlled by the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management and urged the environmental community not to block its efforts with frivolous lawsuits.

The truth of the matter is that nobody, including conservationists, challenged the government's right or need to look for oil and gas, given the tight markets for both. All anyone asked for was a balanced approach that would broadly respect the requirements of nature and spare particularly fragile landscapes. To the dismay of some Western governors, fish and game commissioners, ranchers and hunters — many of them lifelong Republicans — the administration has not produced a balanced policy. Both Washington and the regional B.L.M offices have repeatedly made clear their belief that extraction of oil and gas trumps all other uses of the public lands.

This being an election year, the administration is making noises about a more nuanced approach, and has begun to reach out to its critics among the ranchers and sportsmen. There are 90 different land use plans or leasing proposals on the table. Four are especially controversial. How they come out will tell much about whether the administration has had a genuine change of heart.

One involves the Rocky Mountain Front, a 100-mile-long stretch of northern Montana wonderfully rich in wildlife. The administration is deciding whether to honor some old drilling leases. Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat, has urged that the leases be bought out and that drilling be barred forever along the Front. The administration should embrace both ideas. While the oil and gas deposits in the Front are trivial, the potential damage from drilling is enormous.

Wyoming's Upper Green River Basin, by contrast, is rich in both wildlife and natural gas. Much of the land has already been leased. But until now great care has been taken not to destroy winter animal habitats or impede the spectacular annual migration of more than 100,000 big game animals. Some reports have suggested that the administration is thinking about 10,000 new wells. Any plan that overloads the terrain could ruin a national treasure.

The administration has also trained its sights on 1.4 million acres in and around Utah's Desolation Canyon, an area ruled off limits in the Clinton years pending a study of its suitability as permanent wilderness. Interior Secretary Gale Norton rescinded these protections a year ago as part of a broader policy shift in which she effectively announced her intention not to seek new wilderness designations anywhere. She has since opened up 14,500 of those acres to development and threatens to do more.

Finally there is New Mexico's Otera Mesa, where the Bureau of Land Management has announced plans to open up 1.4 million acres of fragile grasslands, infuriating just about everybody in the state. Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, has proposed a sensible compromise that would open up some of the area for exploration but protect the rest. Ms. Norton should buy it.

It is not as if the companies have no place else to go. Even the B.L.M. concedes that fully 85 percent of the oil and gas on federal lands is already available for leasing and development. Meanwhile, a Wilderness Society analysis suggests that the industry may not have the resources to exploit leases it already owns. Only one-fourth of the 42 million acres of B.L.M. land under lease is actually being developed. That is one more reason to ask why the administration finds it necessary to accelerate drilling in places where moderation is required and to invite drilling in places where there should be none at all.