CHEYENNE — Environmental red tape has contributed to a 79 percent decrease in oil and gas leasing on public land in Rocky Mountain states, taking a toll on the region’s economy, a petroleum industry group says.
Members of the Denver-based Western Energy Alliance are prepared to spend $3.9 billion to drill in the West, creating 16,000 jobs, said Kathleen Sgamma, the group’s government-affairs director. But bureaucratic uncertainty is causing them to look elsewhere to invest, she said.
A new alliance report documents the decline in numbers, though an environmentalist questioned the group’s assignment of blame. Companies have drilled to the point where they have created a natural-gas glut that has driven down prices, said Erik Molvar of the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance. It’s the industry itself that’s requesting “a lot less acreage to be leased,” he said. The Associated Press; Denver Post file photo
