Energy Boom Worries Sportsman

Energy Boom Worries Sportsman



March 2007 – The Bush 
administration's expansion of oil and gas drilling on Western 
public lands is having adverse impacts on fish and wildlife, 
hunting and fishing advocates told the House Resources 
Committee today. 
Fish and wildlife are treated as an "impediment" to energy 
development by federal agencies and industry groups, said 
Rollin Sparrowe, a board member of the Theodore Roosevelt 
Conservation Partnership. 
The complaints by hunting and fishing interests, including 
representatives of two union groups, came in the wake of a 
series of regulatory efforts by the Bush administration to 
streamline the environmental review and approval of drilling 
permits for federal lands. 
Industry groups have long argued for the revisions to reduce 
the red-tape and litigation that can delay drilling, but 
critics contend the changes have gone too far and elevated oil 
and gas drilling above all other interests. 
The government is involved in a "shotgun approach to leasing," 
Sparrowe told the committee, and is failing to adequately 
study the impacts to fish and wildlife before approving 
permits for drilling and putting few constraints on the scope 
and pace of development. 
Conservationists contend the decision not to list the greater 
sagegrouse on the endangered species list was due to pressure 
from the energy industry, which feared impacts of having 
tighter protections on the bird's habitat. 
"Many promises about seeking balanced development have been 
made, including by the President, but what has happened on the 
ground has not been balanced," said Sparrowe, a former 
director of wildlife research for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service. 
Concern about increased pressures to increase drilling 
prompted a call last month the Western Governors Association 
for Congress to revoke provisions of the 2005 energy bill that 
eased environmental review of some oil and gas development in 
wildlife habitats. 
Westerners understand the "need for appropriate, well planned 
and reasonable development of the region's energy resources," 
said Dan Gibbs, a Democratic state representative from 
Colorado. "However oil and gas drilling also has the potential 
to bring lasting and needless damage to the habitat fish and 
wildlife need to survive … it is time wildlife interests had a 
seat at the table when decisions are made about energy 
development 
Gibbs has introduced legislation in Colorado to require more 
cooperation between state agencies to protect wildlife from 
oil and gas drilling and he urged Congress to follow suit. 
The bill has gained the support of more than 50 hunting, 
fishing and conservation groups as well as the Colorado state 
oil and gas association and the state's petroleum association. 

That broad support demonstrates "the sense of urgency we all 
feel about this problem," Gibbs told the panel. "We need you, 
our federal legislators to act and introduce federal 
legislation that would complement what we are trying to do in 
Colorado." 
Republicans on the committee rejected that suggestion and 
questioned the extent of the conflict between energy 
development and the interests of hunters and anglers. 
Cooperation between the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), 
which issues drilling permits, and federal wildlife 
authorities is "already required under federal law," said 
Representative Steven Pearce said. 
Colorado state lawmaker Dan Gibbs called on Congress to pass 
legislation to mitigate conflicts between energy developmenta 
and wildlife. 
"Less than 5 percent of BLM land is used for oil and gas 
production," Pearce added. "We are being led to believe the 
sky is falling when it is actually a very small area that is 
being dealt with." 
But Steve Williams, who served as the director of the U.S. 
Fish and Wildlife Service from 2002-2005, called the manner in 
which energy development is being conducted "troubling." 
Federal and state agencies are underfunded, understaffed and 
ill-equipped to handle the mandate for more drilling, 
according to Williams, president of the Wildlife Management 
Institute. 
States in particular are in a predicament, Williams said, and 
in need of additional federal funding to help balance energy 
development with fish and wildlife interests. 
"It is quite a paradox, state agencies must use their funds to 
conserve species under their authority that occur on federal 
lands," said Williams, who also called for greater 
coordination between federal and state authorities. 
"Federal agencies must involve their counterparts," Williams 
said, "and not just to satisfy process and procedure." 
Williams urged greater accountability and transparency of the 
oil and gas permitting process, as well as for the 
identification of certain unique and special places that are 
too valuable for any development. 
The lone industry representative who testified at the hearing 
said new technologies make energy development on public lands 
compatible with hunting and fishing. 
Muledeer are a popular target for hunters in the West - 
hunting and fishing brings billions of dollars to Western 
states every year. 
The industry is spending some $1 billion to mitigate wildlife 
and environmental concerns at Wyoming's Pinedale gas field 
alone, Charles Greenhawt, government affairs manager for 
Questar Corporation told the committee. 
This mitigation will leave 92 percent of the area unaffected, 
he said, "while ultimately supplying enough domestic natural 
gas to supply ten million U.S. households for over 30 years." 
Greenhawt also noted that natural gas operations have far less 
impact than nature on wildlife, suggesting that recent 
concerns are linked more to drought than to increased oil and 
gas drilling. 
But Sparrowe said the mitigation efforts at Pinedale, the 
nation's second-largest gas field, illustrate the problem, not 
the solution. Winter range for muledeer in the area has 
declined nearly 50 percent, he said, and the affected herd has 
seen a 27 percent decline in reproductive success - an impact 
that has affected other herds in the state. 
"This has occurred with less than 500 wells and approximately 
5,000 acres of disturbance," Sparrowe said. "A proposed 
project being considered would add over 4,000 wells … and 
12,000 acres of new surface disturbance and set aside wildlife 
protections for year-round drilling." 
The concern is "not just Pinedale," Sparrowe added. 
Current BLM plans could allow more than 118,000 oil and gas 
wells on federal land in the Rocky Mountains, affecting more 
than 1 million acres. 
"Vast areas of important habitat for fish and wildlife have 
been, and continue to be leased without proper predictions on 
how development will take place," Sparrowe told the committee. 

Representative Don Young, an Alaska Republican, said critics 
were misguided, calling the issue "a stalking horse to stop 
the development of energy." 
"This is not about stopping energy production," Williams 
responded. "Everyone here has stated that." 





 

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