Open land to drilling, report urges

By Tom Kenworthy
April 5, 2001

Millions of acres of federal land now managed to protect wildlife and scenery also would be opened for oil and gas drilling under a blueprint being finalized by the Interior Department.

The draft recommendations, obtained by USA TODAY, are contained in a report being prepared for a Bush administration task force, chaired by Vice President Cheney, that is developing a national energy policy.

They offer the first details of how the administration might implement President Bush's repeated pledge to expand domestic energy development with more aggressive drilling on federal lands.

Bush and Interior Secretary Gale Norton have argued that modern technology makes possible greatly expanded oil and gas drilling on federal lands without environmental damage. The centerpiece of that effort is winning congressional approval for drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Some Interior officials also have proposed consolidating power over energy exploration decisions on federal land within Norton's office and the Bureau of Land Management, an agency that historically has supported mining, grazing and other commercial activities. That change would strip other agencies such as the Forest Service of their power to limit drilling.

Norton declined to discuss the recommendations until the administration finalizes its energy plan.

''It would be premature for me to talk about any specific proposals,'' she said.

Cheney's spokeswoman, Juleanna Glover Weiss, said the energy task force has not received the recommendations from Interior and is ''not close to making any policy announcements.''

The draft report says that many of the proposals would take two to eight years to implement. With conservationists already attacking the Bush administration's policies on global warming, drinking water standards and smokestack emissions, the recommendations for enhancing energy production from federal lands are likely to be controversial. They include:

* Pushing Congress to decide which lands among 17 million acres of ''wilderness study areas'' should be permanently protected. The remainder would be released for development.

* Modifying Forest Service land-use plans that restrict energy development. Those comprehensive plans, usually many years in the making and involving extensive public comment, ban drilling in such sensitive areas as Montana's Lewis and Clark National Forest.

* Expediting applications for construction of a natural gas pipeline to deliver gas from Alaska's North Slope.