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Federal agencies to improve coordination of permitting
The U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have signed a memorandum of understanding to create seven pilot offices in which the agencies’ staff will work together to expedite federal oil and gas permitting activities. Established under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the pilot offices will locate in the Bureau of Land Management field offices in Rawlins and Buffalo, Wyo.; Miles City, Mont.; Farmington and Carlsbad, N.M.; Grand Junction and Glenwood Springs, Colo.; and Vernal, Utah.
“This Memorandum of Understanding has been signed by all the agencies involved and has the force of law, and as a consequence, I am confident that the pilot offices will be ready for business soon,” said Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton. “These offices will be laboratories of efficiency and environmental protection, staffed with experts knowledgeable in both environmental law and energy development.” One-stop coordination The pilot offices will provide one-stop coordination for permitting procedures such as applications for permits to drill, as well as for inspection and enforcement activities. The BLM field offices selected for the pilot program currently process 70 percent of BLM drilling applications nationwide.
Interior said the seven offices will serve as models to demonstrate how improved interagency coordination can expedite the processing of oil and gas permits, while maintaining environmental protection. After three years the secretary of the interior will report the results of the pilot project to Congress and then recommend to the president on whether the program should be extended to the whole of the United States.
“Greater efficiency will make for a better use of taxpayers money and may result in greater access to our nation’s energy resources,” the department said.
—Alan Bailey
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