Feds are right to require BLM permit efficiencies

Last week, U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke signed an order that has everything to do with efficient government and nothing to do with being pro-extractive industries/antienvironment. Because his vow to follow federal law and process oil and gas drilling permits within the 30-day window is not about where you drill or how you drill or whether or not you drill or how much you will get from consumers if you drill — it is about expecting the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to comply with the law.

Which is admittedly easy for a bureaucracy to demand of others and harder to do itself.

New Mexico’s Oil Conservation Division processes applications for permits to drill in 10 days or less. Compare that to BLM’s Farmington Field Office, which takes about a year, and BLM’s Carlsbad Field Office, which takes about 250 days, according to recent testimony from the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association before a House committee. And while New Mexico approves rights of way in 45 days or less, BLM again takes up to a year. Other BLM permit applications face similar delays, the association says. It estimates delays cost the feds and state around $2.3 million a day.

Now, the goal cannot be to simply ram approvals through with the hope of a big payday at the end, consequences be damned. But neither can the modus operandi be to delay things so egregiously that drillers give up and go away.

The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 states that not only does the secretary need to notify an applicant within 10 days if his/ her application is complete or specify what is missing, but that within 30 days the secretary shall issue the permit, or defer decision and specify what the permit needs, or deny it if those requirements are not met within the specified period or the law is not followed. Taxpayers have a right to expect their government to follow the rules just like everyone else, and in this case process applications in the mandated amount of time so everyone involved can either drill or move on. After all, it’s been the law for 97 years.

The Sierra Club reacted to Zinke’s order by saying “he and Donald Trump share the same priority: giving Big Oil free rein on our publicly owned lands, whatever the cost to our health and our environment.” Whether that’s fact, fake news or something in between, the secretary is right to expect BLM to follow federal law. And the public should be able to expect BLM to be at least as efficient as the 47th state in the union.