Salazar Taking Stewardship Seriously

Salazar Taking Stewardship Seriously

NewWest.net (May 3, 2009) -  By GREGORY MOORE.  To hear the public relations arm of the oil and gas industry describe it, Ken Salazar’s first few months on the job as Secretary of the Interior have been a disaster. But if you ask the country’s sportsmen and women, you’ll find they emphatically disagree. Our new Interior Secretary is bringing balance back to fossil fuel leasing and development on federal lands. After eight years of having their own way, energy industry leaders don't like his balanced approach, but most Americans, the owners of our public land, welcome the change.

Read more...

Victory for New Mexico's Otero Mesa

DENVER (April 29, 2009) - A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver ruled that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) failed to uphold the National Environmental Policy Act in it's 2005 Resource Management Plan for Otero Mesa. BLM put together it's plan in response to requests for oil and gas leases on Otero Mesa after Harvey E. Yates Co. struck natural gas there in 1997.

In it's decision, the appeals court said that the BLM failed to consider an alternative that would have put the area off limits to drilling and did not adequately consider potential impacts of drilling on the area's diverse plant and animal life and on a large underground water source.

Read more...