Oil, gas lease protest breaks new ground

Seven environmental groups are breaking new ground with their protest of an entire Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease sale.

FARMINGTON — Seven environmental groups are breaking new ground with their protest of an entire Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease sale.

The protest blocks action on the sale until the Bureau assesses the effect the 43 leases might have on global warming.

"We are analyzing the protest, but we can't comment on pending litigation," said Steve Henke, deputy director of the bureau's Farmington and Taos office.

Eighteen of the leases were for land within San Juan County, according to Bill Papich, spokesman for the bureau's Farmington Field Office. Papich wonders if similar actions are planned.

"Our next lease sale is July 16, and I've already gotten a call from Megan Anderson of the Western Environmental Law Center asking if she could get a copy of our Environmental Assessment of those properties."

The assessment is unfinished, and cannot be released yet, Papich said.

Anderson is one of the two attorneys who filed the protest March 31. She could not say whether more action is planned until she consults with her clients.

The legal action parallels actions filed in Colorado and Montana, and throws down the gauntlet to the oil and gas industry.

One of the parties represented is San Juan Citizens Alliance, whose New Mexico staff organizer, Mike Eisenfeld, said it's time to call the Bureau into account for the effects of its actions.

"We think the BLM's 2003 Resource Management Plan for San Juan County will be a huge contributor to nitrogen oxide (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOC) in this area," Eisenfeld said. "Their responsibility is to assess the impacts of what they are doing. BLM should not be issuing new natural gas leases without addressing the air quality impacts that are adding up significantly."

Eisenfeld furnished information projecting the oil and gas drilling industry will emit 73,565 tons of NOx by the year 2023, according to the BLM's 2003 Resource Management Plan. The amount is more NOx than the two current power plants combined as of 2007, the information stated.

Simply put, Eisenfeld said BLM is permitting natural gas projects that result in the release of methane and carbon dioxide to the atmosphere without any inventories or impact analyses on the cumulative effects of the actions.

The 2003 plan authorized development of 10,000 natural gas wells and use of 10,000 compressors.

"We already had 10,000 wells, and they said our air would be just fine," Eisenfeld said.

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich and Megan Anderson, the Western Environmental Law Center officials who represent the groups in their Amigos Bravos et al lawsuit, say the BLM should not be surprised by the protest.

The document references Secretarial Order 3226, issued in 1997, directing the Bureau to address global warming and climate change through the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.

The agency's habit of approving lease sales without conducting surveys of the environmental effects of drilling oil and gas at each site, the suit alleges, is a violation of its Public Trust Duty. The Public Trust Duty, the suit claims, applies to the federal government and is intended to act as a safeguard ensuring public resources are managed with the public's welfare and survival taken into consideration.

The Bureau approved almost all new wells within its jurisdiction as "categorical exclusions" — a designation that does not require it to conduct environmental assessments or environmental impact statements. A survey conducted during selected days in 2007 noted that 82 of 83 drilling permits were given the designation.

Most affected by the block of the sales are local drillers. Tom Mullins, principal owner of Synergy Operating, LLC, said his company depends on the federal and state lands to produce the oil and natural gas it harvests. Synergy evaluates every lease sale in the Rocky Mountains.

"It's how we acquire properties," he said.

The tactic, he added, is similar to the environmental movements squelching of timber harvesting.

"They're using the same technique here. They're just using the novel idea of global warming as their reason," he said. "We are sure trying to generate oil, but the federal environmental permitting process takes a lot of time."

Mullins predicted the protest tactics will take a hiatus after the election because he's expecting the nation's leadership to take a philosophical turn.

Added John Byrom, president and chief executive officer of D.J. Simmons, Inc., "It doesn't affect us immediately, but my information is that the challenge is part of a concerted Western states tactic."

"They're pulling out all the stops and they know how to play the legal game," Byrom said. "It's not surprising, but it is frustrating because they're trying more and more to halt drilling in the United States."