|
BLM issues requirements for oil and gas lease sale protests Agency says Wyoming changes could become nationwide model; currently protests can be filed day before sale; new plan calls for protests to be filed 15 days before sale Becky Bohrer Associated Press Writer
The Bureau of Land Management is issuing new requirements for protesting oil and gas lease sales in Wyoming, including tightening the time frame people have to file a protest, a move the agency says is intended to make the leasing process more fair to all those involved.
The BLM in Wyoming said the changes could become the model for a policy on leases nationwide. But some environmentalists say it will make it more difficult to raise concerns over leasing in sensitive wildlife habitat.
In Wyoming, the BLM manages oil, gas and minerals on some 30 million acres, including 11.6 million acres where someone else — often a private landowner — owns the surface rights.
Change in filing for protests
Currently in Wyoming, protests can be filed up to 4 p.m. the day before a scheduled lease sale, and concerns can also be faxed or e-mailed. But under the new plan, set to take effect with a June lease sale, protests must be filed 15 days before the sale, on paper, bearing the original signature of the protesting party, the BLM said.
Notice of proposed lease sales are made at least 45 days before the sale date, said Pamela Lewis, chief of fluid minerals adjudication for the agency in Wyoming.
Lewis said that nationally there are no written procedures for protests. Montana has been allowing people to file protests until the day before a sale; Utah has taken protests until 15 days before them, said Mary Higgins, a land law examiner with the agency in Utah.
Perhaps as early as August, though, the BLM in Utah plans to require that protests be filed no later than 30 days before a sale, she said. National policy being drafted While the BLM in Wyoming said the new procedures mirrored what’s being worked on at the national level, an agency spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., said simply that a national policy is being drafted and that she wasn’t sure when it would be finished or what it would look like.
Celia Boddington said a national standard is being considered because of the number of protests being made. Leases under protest can still be offered for sale, but drilling or other development is put on hold until the protest is settled. That can takes months, even longer.
Lewis said the requirements will allow BLM staff more time to review protests, but shouldn’t interfere with anyone’s ability to file one.
Bruce Hinchey, president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, said he believes the new process would be a help to industry, which has to wait to until a lease protest is settled to begin work. He said fewer developers may be interested in a parcel under protest.
| 