TRADING BLOWS
Energy Trade Groups Spreading ‘Untruths,’ Salazar Says
Salazar blasts trade groups for acting like "an arm of a political party."
By David Frey, 11-24-09
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar took aim at oil and gas industry trade groups on Tuesday, accusing them of spreading “untruths” and launching “poison” attacks against the Obama administration.
“Trade groups for the oil and gas industry repeatedly launch attacks that have all the poison and assumption of election-year politics,” Salazar said in a conference call with reporters announcing a round of oil and gas leases for 2010. “Trade groups for the oil and gas industry need to understand that they do not own the nation’s public lands. Taxpayers do.”
Salazar announced 37 oil and natural gas leases on western public lands in 2010, and a sale in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, the first in two years. The sales include thousands of parcels in a dozen states. That’s one more sale than is scheduled by the end of this year. So far, 32 lease sales have been held on 2.7 million acres. Four more are pending.
The announcement comes as Interior has come under increasing fire from trade groups, who have complained that lease sales have been sharply curtailed under the Obama administration. The Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States has complained that the Obama administration has issued nearly 2,000 fewer leases on 1.1 million fewer acres in the intermountain West than the Clinton administration.
That group has complained that Obama has withheld $100 million worth of unissued leases in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming; reduced, deferred or withdrew other leases and created delays in permitting and environmental analyses. The result is an uncertainty in the leasing process that has left industry wary.
“Interior Secretary Salazar has repeatedly stated that the Obama Administration is not “anti-oil and gas,” the group said, “yet when it comes to Interior’s onshore natural gas and oil program, the record suggests otherwise.”
Salazar rebuffed those allegations, instead blaming any uncertainty on the Bush administration for issuing too many leases in inappropriate places that led to protests, often from environmental groups.
“In the prior administration there were shortcuts taken, including leasing parcels that were next to national parks and not doing the appropriate review.”
He said the new leases were being offered despite what he called “huge undeveloped oil and gas acreages” that have been leased but not developed. Of 53,585 active onshore leases, Salazar said, 26,000 are not in production.
BLM Director Bob Abbey said those undeveloped leases are largely because of economics. Since last year, oil prices have plunged from $130 to $75 per barrel, and natural gas prices have dropped from $10 per BTU to $3.75.
“Our philosophy in the BLM is to still move forward with leases that make sense, but the inventory of leases that are not producing are already high and may go higher,” Abbey said.
BLM reforms were aimed at limiting lease protests, which reached 50 percent of all lease sales offered, he said.
Salazar sought to assure industry that the Obama administration considered oil and gas an important part of the nation’s energy portfolio but encouraged them to expand into renewable resources and choose a “path of engagement” with the administration.
“Those companies need to make a choice,” Salazar said. “Their shareholders didn’t sign up to have their companies’ trade associations become like an arm of a political party.”
Salazar declined to specifically name any groups he believed were spreading untruths.
“The bullies thought they could boss their way around the playground and someone called their bluff,” said Mike Chiropolos, lands program director for the Colorado-based environmental group Western Resource Advocates. “The past eight years or so, big oil got used to having their ways on public land. That’s not the way things are going to go down anymore.”
Despite industry complaints, Chiropolos said, domestic oil production has hit an all-time high, largely due to off-shore leasing, while energy companies have shied away from less-productive onshore sites due to plunging fuel prices.
“this is a bunch of political posturing and Salazar called it for what it is,” Chiropolos said. “It’s election-year partisan politics form trade groups. I think they’re trying to distract the public and beat the drum for drilling on public lands and keeping the nation addicted to fossil fuels.”
Thanks for the story. Hidden behind Salazar's "pot calls kettle black" diatribe is very important information regarding leasing of Federal lands. An analysis of that without the political slant he gave would be very useful - call it "transparency"!
Comment By milburnschmidt, 11-25-09As long as we are held hostage to Middle eastern countries and unstable countries like Saudi Arabia andVenezuela we will be mired in their disputes and forced to expend our young peoples blood to preserve them. I have no faith in the Enviormental groups to lay out a solution and no confidence the oil companies are telling the truth. I just read 6 tenths of one percent of our electricity is produced by wind and solar and it will be generations before it can take over. It would be nice to have a independent review tell us what the situation really is.Certainly energy companies had a friend the last 8 yrs and certainly the enviormental groups have their friends in power now and certainly the average Joe will pay for fighting over a energy policy that changes every election with our pocketbooks or shortages. Finding the truth is harder than findind a group involved in this dispute that doesnt have its hand out.
Comment By Geezer, 11-27-09When they think they can make enough money, the oil companies will step up the drilling on the leases they already have. Every time the democrats are in power the industry revives the same old whine. This time I'm glad to see Ken Salazar setting the record straight. Years ago when I worked in BLM it was sad to see the secretary just stand there like a punching bag while the industry kept hitting him with these falsehoods.
Comment By JoeS, 11-29-09Democrat Party is pro-OPEC.
We could provide hundreds of thousands of American jobs, spending their money in America.
We could have explosive economic growth with adequate supplies of inexpensive energy. The reduction in the price of gas would give American families hundreds of extra disposable dollars.
Our nation could expand its way out of debt.
We could reduce the stranglehold that tinpot dictators have on our foreign policy and economy.
We could promote rights for women in Muslim countries.
Instead we make despots infinitely wealthy and America a debtor nation. Our grandchildren will have a shrinking economy with no power. They will have a debt that they will not be able to pay.
So much for Hope and Change.
I'd like to see the secretary's criticism that oil & gas trade associations are an "arm" of a political party extended also to the so-called environmental organizations.
The knife cuts both ways, folks.
What people need to understand is that more US citizens would like to see our national lands maintained as wild places and not exploited for the benefit of big oil. Every survey ever taken has shown this. Just because some town in Wyoming or Colorado or wherever would like to benefit from the local jobs that gas leases bring does not mean that this is the best use of public land.
Comment By Daryl L. Hunter, 12-01-09Drill here, drill now, pay less.
The only problem with this is that it will cause jobs to happen, wealth would be created, and end the recession sooner and that isn't Obama's mission or else he wouldn't be employing Keynesian economics.
A Cloward and Piven strategy http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/clowardpiven_government.html is at work in America and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is one of the players.
"Drill here, drill now, pay less."
Great phrase ... if you're a bumper sticker. The reality is oil and gas companies are in this for the money, not for you. Gas wells all across the nation are being shut in on purpose because gas is too cheap and they're waiting for prices to rise again. Face it, the gas companies don't want you to have cheap gas because there's no profit in it.
When oil and gas companies can get ordinary people to parrot phrases that get them public resource on the cheap -- or even free -- they profit and that cost savings isn't passed on to the consumer.
It's a sad state of affairs when people reflexively spout slogans without thinking what's behind them. Bush gave away the farm to his oil buddies. Salazar's going back to the center and thinking about the public interest for a change, which is what we pay him to do.
A whole lot of Americans are getting screwed by the drilling boom. Since when is it an American virtue to let big business walk all over regular Americans?
You like the Cloward and Piven strategy, just continue your voting for the bankruptcy of America.
When we go broke as we seem to be determined to do all environmental safeguards will be tossed out the window.
http://www.usdebtclock.org
Point of clarification, Sec. Salazar. If a company has legally obtained leases, paid for them, then those leases do indeed belong to the lessee(s). Same with the surface. Technically, yes, federal lands belong to the federal taxpayer, but when the BLM leases minerals or surface rights, those rights reside with the lessees. What the trade association in question was trying to point out is that the Dept. of Interior has adopted a de-facto policy of "if we delay long enough, development will never happen, even if all of the environmental work has been done and it's been approved at the state level."
Comment By James Marshall, 12-10-09Big issues facing America:
Wars- if you believe we've ever given a rats ass for the MIddle East for any other reason than foreign oil, I have a bridge for sale
Deficit- royalties from federal lands were the country's second biggest source of income after US (the taxpayer, at least those of us with the discipline, responsibility and sense of self worth to word)....
Jobs- access to land is the only way to make a decent living in the rural west....consumers, BTW, need producers...if you don't like oil and gas, quit consuming it. It's a COMMODITY- I.E> TOTALLY DEMAND DRIVEN
Good points all, Mr. Marshall and Mr. Hunter. If you like paying 20% more on your electricity bill, come on out here to CO,UT and WY. The nanosecond the wind turbines came up., our electric bills came up also under the guise of "renewable costs more".
What I can't figure out is how the administration talks the talk of domestically produced natural gas, but won't approve EIS's on public lands to allow it. So, Sec. Salazar, I ask again - are you going to walk the walk or just talk the talk?
Hi, I am heading Sales division and I am looking for a good and genuine Sales job. After searching on internet I have found number of Sales jobs and most of them were useless. If anyone knows about any particular Sales jobs site, request to do reply.
This article was printed from www.newwest.net at the following URL: http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/energy_trade_groups_spreading_untruths_salazar_says/C37/L37/