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By Richard Garrett, Jr.

IN RECOGNITION OF THE CRITICAL CHALLENGES that energy development, generation, and transmission pose to our core mission, the Wyoming Outdoor Council has initiated an energy program.

We believe this new program is an important addition to our portfolio and will give us the chance to better represent our members’ interests and concerns as decisions are made about energy generation, distribution, and use that will affect our state for years and generations to come.

As the global economy moves toward putting a price tag on greenhouse gas emissions, Wyoming is at a crossroads.

Wyoming’s economy is today driven by the production and export of fossil fuels.

Because of this, the state’s political, business and environmental leadership has recognized that we must find new and cost-effective technologies for reducing the state’s carbon footprint (which is directly and indirectly one of the largest in the nation) while managing the state’s financial health.

Meanwhile, the Outdoor Council believes that this must be accomplished while conserving Wyoming’s most enduring and richest values, namely our open spaces, heritage landscapes, clean air and water, and thriving wildlife.

As part of this new energy program, the Wyoming Outdoor Council will:

• Participate in the planning and management of new sources of electricity and transportation fuel as well as electrical transmission. This will include examining the consequences of hundreds of miles of proposed high-voltage electric transmission corridors and an estimated 1,700 new miles of wind-energy collector lines.
• Address advanced technologies for new and existing power generation and carbon sequestration projects.
• Promote state-level policies that remove barriers to energy efficiency and distributed, renewable electricity.
• Encourage state legislators to invest sizable funds for renewable energy research and application at the University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources.
• Promote state and utility policies to bolster renewable energy and efficiency through our participation in the Western Governors’ Association.
• Lobby for state-level policies and legislation that enable Wyoming to do its part—as the nation’s largest producer of coal and its biggest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases—to limit and offset carbon emissions.

As legislative advocate, and now having assumed the additional duty of energy advocate, it’s my purpose and obligation to offer the Council’s perspective on our state’s legislative activities and energy portfolio.

We don’t have all of the answers (and we know of no one who does). Nevertheless, the Council’s expertise and ability to weigh a variety of challenging issues and to define a common need—conservation—means that we are well positioned to be effective participants in the energy revolution.

Over the course of the next several weeks and months I will offer up ideas and analysis on what the state is doing and should do to reduce its carbon footprint.

Contact: Richard Garrett, Jr., energy and legislative advocate, Wyoming Outdoor Council, 307-332-7031 x18; 307-438-9516; richard@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org.

THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT finalized several reforms to its onshore oil and gas program today, as part of Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar’s promise to change how the Department of the Interior does business, according to a media release from the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The reforms will improve environmental protection of important natural resources on U.S. public lands while aiding in the orderly leasing and balanced development of the nation’s energy supply, the release said.

Click here or on the image to the right to read the full text of the release.

Click here to read the memorandum to all BLM field offices on land use planning and parcel reviews.

Click here to read the memorandum to all BLM field offices on categorical exclusions.

“We must continue to move forward quickly and responsibly on our agenda to reform the management of our nation’s onshore and offshore energy resources and our oversight of the companies that develop them,” said Secretary Salazar.

“The BLM reforms we are finalizing today establish a more orderly, open, and environmentally sound process for developing oil and gas resources on public lands. The BP oil spill is a stark reminder of how we must continue to push ahead with the reforms we have been working on and which we know are needed.”

“These reforms take a fresh look — from inside the Federal government and from outside — at how we can better manage Americans’ energy resources,” said BLM Director Bob Abbey. “They will improve protections for land, water, and wildlife, and reduce potential conflicts that can lead to costly and time-consuming protests and litigation of leases. The reforms will also move control of the leasing process from Washington, DC, to the field.”

The following changes are included in the reforms, according to the DOI:

• Engage the public in the development of master leasing plans prior to leasing in certain areas where significant new oil and gas development is anticipated. The intent is to fully consider other important natural resource values before making a decision on leasing and development in an area.
• Ensure potential lease sales are fully coordinated both internally and externally, including public participation, and interdisciplinary review of available information, as well as on-site visits to parcels prior to leasing when necessary to supplement or validate existing data.
• Require an “extraordinary circumstances” review screen before applying the categorical exclusions in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to oil and gas drilling activities on BLM lands. Categorical exclusions are categories of actions that do not have a significant effect on the quality of the human environment, and for which the BLM is generally not required to prepare extensive environmental reviews.
  
• A review for extraordinary circumstances has been required for all administratively-established categorical exclusions, and will now apply to oil and gas categorical exclusions established by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, as well.

In January, Secretary Salazar outlined the reforms that BLM is finalizing today. Many of the reforms follow the recommendations of an interdisciplinary review team that studied a controversial 2008 oil and gas lease sale in Utah.

SIXTY FORMER FEDERAL AND STATE OFFICIALS sent a letter to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today, supporting his intention to reform onshore oil and gas leasing.

Please click here, or on the image to the right, to read the letter.

Nobody understands the issues and challenges of oil and gas development better than those who have served at federal and state land management, wildlife and energy regulatory agencies.

These retirees have come together to advocate policies that would balance energy development needs with good stewardship of this nation’s land, air, water and wildlife.

The recent tragic Gulf explosion and oil spill disaster is an unfortunate example of what can happen when oil and gas development goes terribly wrong.

It’s a reminder of the importance of careful oversight of oil and gas leasing, both offshore and onshore, and the need to balance energy development with other important uses of our land and our water.

On Tuesday, Salazar announced a series of offshore oil and gas leasing reforms that will provide for better management, monitoring and enforcement of oil and gas operations in the nation’s coastal waters.

The signatories of this letter believe it is equally important that he finalize onshore leasing reform measures that were announced in January, ensuring similar levels of protection for landscapes and wildlife habitat.

THE WYOMING OUTDOOR COUNCIL and several other conservation groups are protesting the inclusion of some wildlife-rich parcels in the federal government’s May oil and gas lease sale.

The parcels in question — five near Cody, six in the Red Desert’s Adobe Town area and one outside of Lander — are all documented crucial habitat areas for deer, elk or sage grouse, said Bruce Pendery with the Wyoming Outdoor Council.

“These are all parcels that really need to be pulled from the sale,” Pendery said. “Wildlife managers will tell you that you don’t want to have industrial development in crucial winter range. As anybody who lives in Wyoming knows, deer and elk rely on a very small amount of range to survive the winter.”

(To view copies of the official protests click on the images to the right.)

The Cody-area parcels included in the protest are all in the western portion of the Bighorn Basin, and — according to a variety of sources, including the BLM — they are all in crucial winter range for deer and elk, or they fall within sage grouse core areas, Pendery said.

The Red Desert parcels named in the protest are within citizens’ proposed wilderness in south-central Wyoming’s iconic Adobe Town, an area famous for its intricate badlands, towering cliffs, spires, and arches.

Part of Adobe Town was recognized in 2007 by the state of Wyoming as an official “very rare or uncommon” area.

“Adobe town is one of this state’s most special landscapes, and it’s part of our heritage,” Pendery said. “It has a tremendous history, great wilderness values, opportunities for solitude, hunting, and to just get away from it all. It’s one of the most incredible places in Wyoming.”

The Lander-area parcel that the groups are protesting straddles the Fuller Peak citizens’ proposed wilderness northeast of Shoshoni.

WHAT IS AN OIL AND GAS LEASE SALE?

The Bureau of Land Management holds oil and gas lease sales quarterly in Wyoming, in which it auctions off parcels of public land that have been nominated for oil and gas drilling.

As a built-in safeguard, the public has an opportunity to protest the offering of any given parcels, and groups and individuals often do protest.

Many of the protests are denied, but the BLM has, subsequent to protests by the Wyoming Outdoor Council and others, pulled many parcels from its auctions.

Here is a schedule of upcoming BLM oil and gas lease sales in Wyoming:

August 3, 2010
November 2, 2010
February 1, 2011
May 3, 2011
August 2, 2011
November 1, 2011

For more information on the BLM’s oil and has lease sale program click here.


Contact: Bruce Pendery, program manager, Wyoming Outdoor Council, 435-752-2111, bruce@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org.

ON THIS EARTH DAY the Wyoming Outdoor Council is remembering and reflecting on the contributions of Wyoming’s late Sen. Craig Thomas, who was the original champion of the historic legislation that would eventually be called the Wyoming Range Legacy Act.

The Wyoming Range Legacy Act was introduced by Sen. John Barrasso in honor of Sen. Thomas after he passed away.

Signed into law last year, the legislation prohibits new oil and gas leasing on 1.2 million acres of the Wyoming Range and facilitates a process by which existing leases can be donated or sold and permanently retired.

Sen. Thomas’s vision for conserving the Wyoming Range for future generations is an immeasurable contribution to our state’s history and natural heritage, and the Wyoming Outdoor Council would like to take this occasion to honor this bold vision.

The late senator’s idea was to try to find a balance in Wyoming between energy development and the conservation of the state’s other great natural resources, including its abundant wildlife, clean rivers and streams, and wild places.

The Wyoming Outdoor Council believes this idea, and the resulting Wyoming Range legislation, embodies the spirit of Earth Day.


And in this same spirit, we know there is a lot of work yet to be done to achieve balance.

There are still 44,000 acres of contested oil and gas leases within the Wyoming Range Legacy Act withdrawal area, all of which the Forest Service recently acknowledged were likely inappropriate for leasing.

And this summer the Forest Service is expected to address a proposal to drill 136 new gas wells in the Hoback Basin in the northernmost part of the Wyoming Range withdrawal area, just south of Bondurant.

The Wyoming Outdoor Council believes protecting the Wyoming Range will be an essential step toward achieving balance in Wyoming.

Happy Earth Day! And thank you Senator Craig Thomas! ?

Media Contact: Lisa McGee, Wyoming Outdoor Council, 307-332-7031 x20; lisa@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org.

A PERSONAL EARTH DAY NOTE from the Council’s Bruce Pendery

EARTH DAY IS TERRIBLY IMPORTANT TO ME because it has affected me in the most personal of ways. I am who I am due to Earth Day.

I grew up in Ohio, in the suburbs near Cincinnati. Farms and factories were what I lived with and nature and the environment consisted of little more than postage-stamp-size state parks and visits to the 10 acres of woods behind my house.

But that all changed in 1970 when I was 12 going on 13. First, my family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I had no idea why my parents were dragging me off to a God-forsaken desert, but by the time we got to Amarillo, Texas I forgot I had ever been to Ohio.

Goodbye to those farms and factories. I was completely taken by the deserts and mountains of the West. And then just a few months later was the first Earth Day, in April, 1970.

I was swept up in the call for environmental protection, and with the first Earth Day following just a few months after my first encounter with the West, I was set on my life’s path.

I knew then — as an eighth grader — where I was going and what I was going to do. I was going to work to protect the environment. And that has never changed, not for a minute. And I owe it to Earth Day.

In reality it took awhile and there were a few twists and turns, but now, working for the Wyoming Outdoor Council I get to work for environmental protection every day, and I love it. And I owe it to Earth Day (and to the West).

So Earth Day is deeply important to me; it transformed my life. I hope you can get as much joy out of it as I do. Celebrate the Earth!

Contact: Bruce Pendery, program manager, Wyoming Outdoor Council, 435-752-2111, bruce@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org.

JOHN MUIR, ONE OF OUR NATION’S PIONEER CONSERVATIONISTS, was born on this day in 1838.

The Wyoming Outdoor Council has immense gratitude for Mr. Muir’s lifetime of conservation and preservation work, and his priceless contributions to our nation’s natural heritage.

Here is a quote to contemplate, in celebration of what would be Mr. Muir’s 172nd birthday:

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul.”

—John Muir

Learn More about John Muir here.

AN EXCERPT FROM THE OPINION PAGE of today’s Casper Star-Tribune, from a piece about reforming the way Wyoming regulates hydraulic fracturing:

The Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has delayed making a final decision until June on reporting requirements about chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.

But based upon questions about the process that the commission has been asking, the state is headed in the right direction to find a balance between the economic concerns of the energy industry and the public health questions raised by environmentalists and other residents…

Click here to read the entire piece.

… Wyoming Outdoor Council attorney Steve Jones made a reasonable suggestion when he said companies could list the constituent fracking chemicals — much like Coca-Cola lists the ingredients in Coke without disclosing the secret Coke formula.

Click HERE or on the image to read the press release.

Media Contacts: Bruce Pendery, program manager, Wyoming Outdoor Council, 435-752-2111, bruce@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org.

Laurie Milford, executive director, Wyoming Outdoor Council, 307-399-8440

THE U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE has decided not to protect the Wyoming pocket gopher as an endangered species, the agency announced today.

This decision came in response to a 2007 petition to list the animal as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

You can read the official 12-month finding by clicking here.

The diminutive Wyoming pocket gopher is the only mammal found exclusively in Wyoming. Its entire known range is inside Wyoming’s Carbon and Sweetwater counties in the Red Desert. Recent research on Wyoming pocket gophers has confirmed that the species is genetically distinct from other pocket gopher species.

Sophie Osborn, wildlife biologist with the Wyoming Outdoor Council, said she was surprised by the Obama administration’s decision, but she added that it highlights the critical need for more research to determine the impact of development on the species.

In its written decision, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service points to a lack of scientific information about how development might impact Wyoming pocket gophers.

Osborn said it’s true more information is needed, but she said this decision is risky. If development does prove to be detrimental to the animal, which is likely, it could be too late to protect the species by the time scientists have the necessary data. Thousands of oil and gas wells are proposed throughout the Wyoming pocket gopher’s range, as well as industrial-scale wind development.

“This decision has, in a sense, shifted much of the responsibility for ensuring the species’ survival to the federal Bureau of Land Management, which will oversee energy development in the animal’s range,” Osborn said. “We do not want to see the Wyoming pocket gopher go extinct because of a lack of knowledge.”

The Wyoming pocket gopher’s entire known range is slated for intensive energy development, Osborn said, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service admitted that there are inadequate regulatory mechanisms in place to protect the species.

“So the Bureau of Land Management will need to ensure that specific conservation measures are instituted to protect this rare and important species in the face of such development,” she said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also acknowledged in its official finding that a preliminary study has already indicated that the Wyoming pocket gopher is the species in Wyoming “with the highest potential risk for energy-related effects based on its proximity to existing wells, the proportion of lands leased for oil and gas within its range, and the density of wells within that range.”

Although the results of this study are still preliminary, the BLM should consider the implications of these findings as the agency mulls management actions that could affect the species, Osborn said.

The Wyoming pocket gopher, or Thomomys clusius, is a sandy-colored, underground-dwelling mammal that feeds primarily on roots, tubers, and surface vegetation near its burrow entrances. Despite their small size and elusive habits, pocket gophers benefit their ecosystem by aerating the soil with their digging and tunneling, enriching it with organic matter, and improving its water retention capacity during spring runoff, Osborn said.

Pocket gophers are important to native ecosystems because their activities can influence the distribution of plants, which in turn affects the herbivores that feed on these plants.

Contact: Sophie Osborn, Wyoming Outdoor Council, 307-742-6138; sophie@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org.

Sophie Osborn is a wildlife biologist and the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s wildlife program manager. She is the author of the award-winning book Condors in Canyon Country.

Video: An expert from the University of Wyoming explains some of the basics about pocket gophers. There are a variety of pocket gopher species, including the Wyoming pocket gopher. Credit: ONOW2008 via YouTube