Given all the hoopla about the oil and gas drilling boom in the West, the casual observer might think there isn’t an acre of public land that isn’t being staked out by energy companies.
A recent federal report concludes that’s not quite the case.
The study, released Nov. 28 by the Bureau of Land Management, examined about 99 million acres in 11 energy basins, including seven in the Rocky Mountain West. (Those cover about 67 million acres. Oil-shale lands weren’t included in the study.) The goal was to report to Congress on how much land is open to energy production and how much is protected.
Here are the findings:
There are an estimated 21 billion barrels of oil and 187 trillion cubic feet of natural gas under those lands. (The amounts of proven reserves are much lower.)
About 24 percent of the land (containing 3 percent of the oil and 13 percent of the gas) is open to energy development without special restrictions.
Another 30 percent of the land (with 46 percent of the oil and 60 percent of the gas) can be developed with restrictions. (Rules include seasonal timeouts on production to protect wildlife, for instance.)
Some 46 percent of the land can’t be developed, locking up 51 percent of the oil and 27 percent of the gas.
The energy industry and environmentalists spun the study in different ways, with producers saying too much oil and gas is off-limits, while enviros suspect the report just gives the industry ammunition.
Regardless of how it’s interpreted, the report provides useful information, and its findings should remind us of important principles about energy development.
Most environmental rules exist for good reasons, including protection of wildlife, sensitive lands, watersheds or other important natural features.
Existing rules should be enforced, something regulators haven’t done uniformly well during the current boom.
While some producers complain that environmental rules unnecessarily raise energy prices, it’s important that those prices reflect all costs, not just the costs of exploring, extracting and shipping but also the cost of minimizing damage to public lands.
And, even if all federal lands were open to production right now, that wouldn’t help consumers anytime soon. The energy industry has plenty to do with the leases it already has. As Doug Hock of Encana Corp., one of the bigger gas players in the Rockies, told The Post last week: “Our plate is pretty full in terms of what we’re working and what we’re producing.”
