Ken Salazar aims to broker compromises on conservation vs. drilling

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar swooped through Western hot spots this week trying to forge compromises as a century-old struggle intensifies over protecting pristine public lands versus leaving them open to development. Pressure to drill for oil and gas is mounting. A surge of proposals to protect millions of acres as wilderness or "national conservation areas" also is gaining momentum. There are signs that powerful industry lobbyists might be relaxing their opposition to conservation plans that the Obama administration is expected to push in Congress next month. "I'm optimistic that we're going to find more and more places where we have conservationists and local communities and industry coming together," Salazar said in an interview after hiking through black brush and snake weed to inspect red-rock canyonlands near Moab. "You can't do oil and gas development everywhere. There are some places that should be off-limits," Salazar said. "In those places where you do oil and gas development, companies need to know we are going to insist on them using the best practices." Starting Tuesday in Denver, Salazar surveyed Castle Peak and Flattops-area parcels covering 47,000 acres in northwest Colorado — east of the contested energy-rich Roan Plateau — with an eye to political feasibility. He then focused on Utah, where more than 350,000 acres of public lands are deemed suitable as wilderness, and New Mexico, where about 3 million acres are eyed...more