Trump plans to open Utah wildlife refuge to oil, gas drillers
Oil and gas drilling beneath a Utah national wildlife refuge will be permitted under a proposal the Interior Department announced Wednesday, reversing restrictions on fossil fuel development last affirmed by the George W. Bush administration.
Ouray National Wildlife Refuge, which protects 16 miles of the Green River in northeast Utah’s oil and gas-rich Uintah Basin, would be open to drilling under a proposal to amend the Bureau of Land Management’s Vernal, Utah, Resource Management Plan, which was completed in 2008.
This new proposal is among the numerous restrictions on fossil fuel development the Trump administration has either lifted or plans to lift in pursuit of its “energy dominance” agenda. Trump officials have opened Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, exempted offshore oil development in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act, opened millions of acres of Alaska to drilling, and slashed royalty rates, air quality controls, and other environmental safeguards.
Opening the Utah refuge to oil and gas leasing aligns with President Donald Trump’s executive order calling for “unleashing American energy,” the BLM said in an unsigned email Wednesday.
When asked why BLM is opening the refuge to drilling, the bureau cited $3 billion in economic benefits the state derives from the fossil fuel industry and an additional $177 billion the industry contributes to the US economy.
The current Vernal Resource Management Plan blocks all access to oil and gas beneath the refuge, which the US Fish and Wildlife Service considers a sanctuary for migratory birds. The proposal to amend the plan says drillers would be allowed to access about 5,200 acres of federally-managed minerals that exist beneath the nearly 12,000-acre refuge.
However, oil and gas companies would only be allowed to access the refuge’s oil and gas from outside its boundaries, a drilling-rights restriction known as a “no surface occupancy” stipulation, according to the proposal.
About 1,700 active oil wells are found on about 100 national wildlife refuges nationwide, but most either predate the refuges or tap private minerals the federal government doesn’t control in an arrangement called “split estate,” according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Opening the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drillers is “heartbreaking,” said Randi Spivak, public lands director for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group.
“Even the Bush administration—a fierce ally of oil and gas—recognized that we must protect the Ouray Refuge,” she said. “This refuge was legally established to be an inviolate sanctuary for migratory birds, we will fight this drilling expansion every step of the way.”
(By Bobby Magill)
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