FASTER DRILLING
Interior Department to streamline approval of oil, gas permits on federal lands
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — President Donald Trump’s efforts to increase U.S. energy production got a boost Thursday from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who pledged to streamline permitting for oil and gas drilling and hold more frequent sales of drilling rights on federal lands.
Zinke signed an order calling for faster and more efficient oil and gas permitting to clear a backlog of drilling permits in U.S. Bureau of Land Management offices.
“There has to be a process that doesn’t over-delay things so we can’t get anything done in this country,” Zinke said.
Federal law requires permits to be decided upon within 30 days, Zinke said, but the average wait for oil and gas companies has grown to 257 days. Backlogs of oil and gas permits awaiting approval at BLM offices in Casper, Wyo., and Vernal, Utah, have topped 500, according to Interior.
In New Mexico, 152 permits are pending in the Farmington office and 388 are pending in the Carlsbad-Hobbs office, according to the department.
The news was welcomed by industry officials in New Mexico.
“New Mexico is America’s leading oil producer on leased federal lands, and today’s announcement will help us to more fully realize our energy potential,” Ryan Flynn, executive director of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, said in a prepared statement. “This is especially great news for our schools and other critical public services who rely on oil and gas revenue for funding.”
Zinke promised not to sidestep the main law regulating development on federal lands, the National Environmental Policy Act, and said the order won’t open up national parks or other major federal holdings to drilling.
“We’re going to be a fair and prudent partner, but we’re not going to be an adversary to creating wealth and opportunity on some of our public lands,” Zinke said.
The order also will require federal oil and gas lease sales be held in each state at least quarterly.
The move could end a lawsuit filed last year by a petroleum industry group, the Denverbased Western Energy Alliance, which asserts four times a year is the minimum required by law.
“It gets to the heart of our lawsuit. We are very much open to seeing if it is indeed implemented and settling appropriately,” said Kathleen Sgamma, the group’s president.
Environmentalists criticized Zinke’s order as a giveaway to oil and gas interests.
“As much as Zinke talks about valuing our public lands and emulating Teddy Roosevelt, the truth is that 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,” the Sierra Club’s Kelly Martin said in a statement.