Under pressure from Republican lawmakers, the Obama administration is considering whether to reinstate more than a third of the 77 controversial oil- and gas-drilling leases near national parks in the Mountain West that were issued under President George W. Bush and blocked once President Barack Obama entered the White House.
The Interior Department, in a report released Thursday, sharply criticized the process by which those leases were auctioned in the last days of the Bush presidency.
But the report also opened the door for the department to reinstate or re-auction 30 leases on parcels that lie in existing oil and gas development areas or are “not near particularly sensitive landscapes.” It instructs the Bureau of Land Management to conduct a more thorough review of those parcels to see whether leases would be appropriate.
The auction was held in December, barely a month before Obama took office. Conservation groups challenged the lease sales in court, and incoming Interior Secretary Ken Salazar quickly ordered the 77 most controversial leases vacated while a review could be conducted.
Western Republicans in the Senate, led by Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah, retaliated by stalling the confirmation of David Hayes, Salazar’s choice to be his chief deputy. The Republicans relented after Hayes promised to personally conduct an expedited review of the leases.
The report released Thursday said the auction “deviated in important respects from the normal leasing process.” For example, it said, the Bureau of Land Management failed to notify the National Park Service about tracts that were a late addition to the sale, and the bureau refused to adequately consider the air quality impacts of the leases.
