By JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press Writer
March 16, 2001
WASHINGTON (AP) - Republicans lawmakers on Thursday
joined the Bush administration in seeking to consider
exploratory oil and gas drilling in some areas of the
West set aside by the Clinton administration as
national monuments.
`Let's face it, our mounting energy needs and
skyrocketing consumer prices mandate an energy policy
that includes increased exploration for gas and oil,''
said House Resources Committee Chairman Jim Hansen,
R-Utah.
`Some of our public lands _ including some of the
monuments - are ideally suited to environmentally
sound drilling.''
A memo released Thursday by aides to GOP Rep.
Barbara Cubin of Wyoming, head of the energy and
mineral resources subcommittee, said public lands and
outer continental shelves represent the best `hunting
ground'' for new discoveries of federally owned
mineral resources.
Her staff complained in the memo that the Forest
Service and the Interior Department's Bureau of Land
Management often fail to forecast oil and gas
development in their land-use plans.
`As a result, inordinate delays in obtaining
permits for drilling and mining occur because plans
must be redone to analyze the cumulative impacts of
oil and gas development,'' Cubin's staff wrote.
``Meanwhile, the nation goes without new sources of
natural gas and citizens everywhere pay the price.''
President Bush told a group of reporters Tuesday he
believes that more public lands, including national
monuments, can be explored for energy resources with
little environmental impact.
`We'll be looking at all public lands,'' he said.
``It depends upon the cost-benefit ratio. ...But there
are parts of the monument lands where we can explore
without affecting the overall environment.''
His remarks echoed those of Interior Secretary Gale
Norton, who has said the administration will consider
opening some off-limits areas of the Rockies to oil
and gas drilling as part of a review of untapped
energy resources.
The subcommittee's senior Democrat, Rep. Ron Kind
of Wisconsin, said Bush's remarks were as ``equally
disheartening'' as his decision earlier this week
against regulating carbon dioxide emissions from
coal-burning power plants as a pollutant.
`This is not a good beginning for a rational and
productive debate on national energy policy,'' he
said. ``The solution to this problem is not simply
'more supply at any cost' as the president's recent
actions seem to imply.''
Representatives of the natural gas industry told
the subcommittee that the nation could face dire
economic consequences if new areas are not explored
while demand for the fuel keeps rising.
`This could be the greatest threat to our economy
since World War II,'' said Matthew Simmons, president
of Simmons & Company International and a member of
Bush's presidential transition team.
Lisa Speer, a senior analyst for the Natural
Resources Defense Council, said energy policy should
rely more on new technology rather than ``extracting
as much as much energy as possible, mostly fossil fuel
form, in hopes that supply can catch up with demand.''
Related Links:
Interior Department: http://www.doi.gov
House Resources Committee: http://www.house.gov/resources
