OIL, GAS, PUBLIC LAND & POLITICS
Energy Company Donates Leases, Is It a Harbinger for a Western Shift?
By Courtney Lowery, 6-28-06
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| The Rocky Mountain Front. Photo by Ingrid Lovitt. | |
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A day after Sen. Conrad Burns made the first step in banning all new oil and gas leases on Montana's Rocky Mountain Front, Questar E&P, a natural gas company, decided to hand 1,691 acres of its leases in the Front's Blackleaf Canyon area over to Trout Unlimited.
Trout Unlimited's Vice President for Conservation, Chris Wood, said TU had been in negotiations for some time on the Front leases, but the Burns language introduced yesterday in the Interior Appropriations Bill was a final piece of the puzzle.
"It's fair to say (the donation) is a direct result of the concept of permanently retiring the area," Wood said. "They saw the big picture just as much as we did."
This deal is a first of its kind, Wood said, but hopefully not the last -- on the Front or West-wide.
"This could be precedential," he said. "With Questar stepping to the place, this could be a larger trend." He said TU is actively pursuing similar deals in the West.
The Burns move is one of a few such surprises in the last two weeks on the issue of oil, gas and public lands. Last week, Republican congresswoman Heather Wilson (who is running for re-election) signed on with Democrat Tom Udall to support legislation to keep oil and gas development out of New Mexico's Valle Vidal. A few days earlier, Wyoming Republican Sen. Craig Thomas had a bombshell of his own, saying generally, national forests should be off limits to energy exploration.
Wood hopes these are all indications that Western leaders are recognizing, "if we push too hard, too fast for development in the Rocky Mountain West, you'll lose public support," he said, "maybe this new temperament is a reflection of that."
It is an election year and in Burns' case, he is facing a tough challenger in Democrat Jon Tester. So what if all of this is just political pandering?
Wood says, "So what?"
"It's eye on the prize and the prize is to protect the Front," he said.
Moreover, Wood says it's not all politics. The Questar E&P donations are also testament of what a collaborative, broad-based movement can accomplish -- especially when stereotypes are broken down. "It's not your typical complaining environmentalists," he said. To their credit, farmers, ranchers, hunters and folks from a wide political spectrum came together in the fight for protection. "This is a good example for us to follow," he said.
And of course, this particular deal had some help from Burns and Questar.
"Questar and Burns deserve a tremendous amount of credit for this because it's not exactly easy to go against the status quo," Wood said.
In a release from Trout Unlimited, Questar E&P executive vice president Jay B. Neese said the company was happy to give the leases, which aren't near any of Questar's active exploration or production areas. The donated leases are all of Questar's holdings along the front.
And, it wasn't the first time TU and Questar have worked together in the West.
Wood said TU's work with Questar leases in the greater Green River area in Wyoming set the stage for more dialogue with the company.
In Wyoming, Questar worked out a deal, with TU's help, to drill year round on a lease that only first allowed work during certain parts of the year to give wildlife some room. In that deal, Questar agreed to use fewer well pads year round, rather than more pads sporadically, which Wood said biologists, the agencies involved and TU determined was just as helpful to wildlife in the area.
TU got some heat for helping in that deal, but Wood said, "We always pride ourselves on sticking to responsible development."
Neese said in the release, “We value our relationship with Trout Unlimited and appreciate their willingness to enter into meaningful and constructive dialogue with the oil and gas industry."
Wood said TU originally approached Questar to buy the leases along the Front. "We just figured that was how this would go," he said. But Questar came back with a proposal to donate the leases instead.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported the congressman sponsoring the Valle Vidal bill. We're sorry for the error.
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