Environmental groups are leaning on President Barack Obama to use his authority to preserve more open space, raise royalty and rental rates for oil and gas leases and establish a mitigation fee for energy exploration. In its "Blueprint for Balance," the groups, including the liberal Center for American Progress and the Wilderness Society, say that the Obama administration needs to act to ensure America’s treasured landscapes are not ruined by development and that long-lasting outdoor recreation opportunities exist for future generations. "There’s a gold rush mentality right now in our public lands and that mentality not only puts the energy boom at risk of bust but it also has real costs to America’s recreation, tourism and outdoor economy," Wilderness Society President Jamie Williams told reporters Tuesday. "The bottom line is we need to be as intentional about conservation as we are about energy development, putting conservation on equal ground with development." Obama can, the groups say, take action on most of the suggestions in their report, though starting a mitigation fund may have to go through Congress. While environmentalists usually align with Democrats on issues, the coalition is making its argument noting that the Obama administration is doling out energy exploration leases 2.5 times faster than it is protecting federal lands as wilderness or monuments. Included in the report to be released on Wednesday, the groups urge the Obama administration to:
» Create more national monuments, including around Desolation Canyon in Utah, to protect against any drilling. The president has the unilateral power under the Antiquities Act to do so.
» Hike royalty rates oil and gas companies pay to Interior so that taxpayers get a fair return, and update rules on measuring output of those drilling sites.
» Boost rates charged for leases on public lands to prod companies to drill or move on.
» Establish a mitigation fee for oil or gas exploration to offset impacts of drilling or mining. Rep. Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican who chairs the House Natural Resources subcommittee over public lands, notes that environmental groups often forget to mention that there are more than 450 million acres of federal land with a protective designation, while just 38 million are leased for oil and gas production...
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You can download the report here. The Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks is listed as one of three monuments they are pushing, plus Otero Mesa is listed as a "do not drill" area.
They also forget what happened in the picture above: Obama, during his first term, signing the Omnibus Public Lands bill, which combined 160 bills and created 2 million acres of Wilderness.
1 comment:
interesting report. In looking at acres of public lands permanently protected during presidential administrations, a footnote to the chart explains that it does not include Marine National Monuments designated by President Bush that encompasses more that 200 million acres. That would send the bar for his adminstration off the scale of the figure which only goes as high as 30 million acres. It would also dwarf the accomplishments of their hero, Bill Clinton.
These are the tactics employed by the extreme environmental movement so accuratley portrayed in the book, Sagebrush Rebel.
This report also advocates returning to the failed policies of the Carter administration that led to almost no offshore areas being offered for exploration. These tactics, which the current administration is adopting, will foreclose any future exploration.
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