FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Drilling the Climate: Colorado Oil and Gas Auction to Fuel Global Warming, BLM Ignoring its Responsibility to Protect Colorado’s Climate

A coalition of local, regional, and national citizens groups have challenged the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s decision to open up more than 174,000 acres of Colorado to oil and gas drilling without taking action to protect Colorado’s climate.

Contact:

Jeremy Nichols, Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action, 303.454.3370, cell 303.437.7663
Chris Canaly, San Luis Valley Ecosystems Council, 719.256.4758
Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, Western Environmental Law Center 575.751.0351

A coalition of local, regional, and national citizens groups today challenged the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s decision to open up more than 174,000 acres of Colorado to oil and gas drilling without taking action to protect Colorado’s climate. Despite the growing dangers of climate change to Colorado, the agency is ignoring the natural gas industry’s global warming pollution as it feverishly promotes a runaway drilling boom.

Sloppy industrial practices make oil and gas drilling one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas pollution in Colorado, but on May 8th, the Bureau of Land Management intends to open up more of the state to the oil and gas industry without considering the impacts of climate change and without requiring the use of the latest technologies to cut global warming pollution.

In stark contrast, just yesterday, Governor Bill Ritter issued an Executive Order establishing greenhouse gas pollution reductions goals for Colorado of 20 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050, both from 2005 levels. In his 2007 Climate Action Plan, Governor Ritter reported that climate change will lead to prolonged heat waves, more air pollution, snow-starved winters, deeper droughts, more wildfires, widespread beetle infestations wiping out forests, and the spread of West Nile virus. Similarly, an August 2007 report by the Government Accountability Office found that federal land and water resources managed by the Bureau of Land Management are highly vulnerable to a wide range of climate change impacts, many of which are already occurring. Simply put, climate change is a major threat to Colorado and the Rocky Mountains.

“What is Colorado without clean air, clean water, vibrant forests, and deep mountain snow?” asked Chris Canaly with the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council. “Climate change threatens everything that makes Colorado special. We need to take action today for the future of our state.”

The majority of the leases that will be auctioned by the Bureau of Land Management are located in the Rio Grande National Forest, located in Rio Grande County in the western San Luis Valley of southern Colorado.

While the natural gas industry promotes its product as a “cleaner-burning fuel,” the global warming impact of natural gas, also known as methane, is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. In Colorado, preliminary inventories show that accidental leaks and deliberate releases inject more than 5.6 million tons of methane and carbon dioxide into the air every year. These preliminary inventories report that emissions are likely much higher.

Local, regional, and national citizens groups have combined efforts and called on the Bureau of Land Management to think twice about the upcoming lease auction. In a formal protest, the groups have challenged the agency to adopt climate safeguards as conditions for drilling, many of which could help industry make money. Reflecting the region-wide threat poised by climate change, and the pervasive drilling boom happening throughout the Rocky Mountains, the formal protest is similar to protests submitted in Montana and New Mexico in the past several weeks.

The Bureau of Land Management’s failure to address climate change defies several bedrock
federal environmental laws, as well as an order issued by the Secretary of the Interior in 2001. This order requires Interior agencies to consider the impacts of climate change in their decisions. While other agencies are following the order, the Bureau of Land Management has so far turned a blind eye to its responsibilities.

“We need to look before we leap,” said Jeremy Nichols, Director of Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action, one of the groups joining the protest. “The Bureau of Land Management can ill-afford to keep drilling away the climate, especially when profitable strategies to cut global warming pollution are at hand. This is an intensifying issue across the Rocky Mountains.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified more than 80 ways the oil and gas industry can reduce methane emissions, save money, and help protect the climate. Some of these are as simple and direct as maintaining oil and gas facilities to reduce methane from leaking valves and equipment. Some technologies can reduce methane emissions by 90% or more, and help industry make millions. In his Climate Action Plan, Governor Ritter called on companies to expand the use of these money-saving, emission reducing technologies.

“This isn’t about whether oil and gas drilling is good or bad, it’s about whether the Bureau of Land Management is going to safeguard our climate and Colorado,” said Erik Schlenker- Goodrich with the Western Environmental Law Center. “With win-win solutions at our fingertips, there’s no reason the agency should be leasing away oil and gas without first adopting climate safeguards. This is a no-brainer.”

Click here to read the groups’ protest to the Bureau of Land Management’s lease sale auction.

Click here to read the Bureau of Land Management’s May 8, 2008 lease sale auction.

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