GUEST COMMENTARY

Salazar Taking Stewardship Seriously

By Gregory Moore, Guest Writer, 5-03-09

	Photo courtesy of Trout Unlimited

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.

Since his confirmation by Congress in January, Salazar has restored some common sense and responsibility to the process by which America’s public lands are loaned to industry for oil and gas extraction. Hunters and anglers in states that hold the majority of BLM and Forest Service lands are applauding the more balanced approach taken by Salazar’s Department of the Interior in considering the detrimental effects irresponsible development can have on fish and game habitat.

By cancelling a number of oil and gas lease sales in Utah and Colorado, and by delaying others, Salazar has angered an industry that was favored above all other public-land users during the previous administration. But by doing so, he has sent a clear message to the nation, one that repeats what concerned sportsmen have stated for years: While domestic energy resources must be developed to ease our dependence on imported fuel, the resources that lie beneath public lands need to be accessed in a responsible manner.This is essential, because public lands also harbor the nation’s best fish and wildlife habitat. That habitat, it should be noted, provides great hunting and fishing opportunities for all of our nation’s hunters and anglers.

The decision to withdraw proposed oil and gas leases on more than 100,000 acres of public land in Utah in February doesn’t mean that those acres are closed to future energy development. But it helps ensure the impacts of development on fish and wildlife habitat--including critical mule deer winter range, sage grouse habitat and native cutthroat trout streams--will be considered before the drilling rigs roll in.

Salazar’s decision also played a large part in a Forest Service decision to withdraw nearly 100,000 acres of public land from a proposed energy lease sale in Colorado. That sale was protested by Trout Unlimited, the National Wildlife Federation and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, all partners in Sportsmen for Responsible Energy Development, a coalition of sportsmen, rod and gun clubs and outdoors-dependant businesses who want to ensure that fish, wildlife and habitat are given a fair shake when energy development takes place on public lands.

While threats to fish and wildlife remain in the BLM portion of that sale, hunters and anglers are generally optimistic that, under Salazar’s direction, the Department of the Interior will continue to employ this balanced approach when considering future energy development in unique places like Utah’s Deep Creek Mountains and Colorado’s Roan Plateau. These are places where sportsmen still enjoy the best hunting and fishing opportunities in the West thanks to intact, healthy fish and game habitat.

Sportsmen and women are also rejecting the energy industry’s claim that a balanced approach to oil and gas development on public lands threatens our nation’s fragile economy and national security. That charge simply doesn’t hold water--the industry has millions of acres of leased public lands “inventory” already at its disposal, but continues to ask for more. Pointing fingers at Salazar for revisiting the leasing and drilling process is purely political. The days of unfettered access to public lands are coming to an end, rightly so, and the industry, despite an overall slowdown due to the global economy and low commodity prices, finds it convenient to blame the new guy in charge.

Using falsehoods and scare tactics to generate public support for a pro-drilling agenda became a standard operating procedure for the industry during the final months of the previous administration. But it is dishonest. It’s also ineffective, because people across the West understand Salazar’s direction of the Department of the Interior is consistent with the desires of the people who live here, raise families here and recreate here.

Salazar’s willingness to halt the free-for-all policies regarding energy development that damaged both the nation’s public lands and the federal government’s integrity is welcome evidence of change, and sportsmen stand behind his common-sense approach to accessing our nation’s oil and gas reserves in a manner that protects the future of hunting and fishing on our precious public lands.

In his first four months in office, Secretary Salazar has demonstrated that he takes his role as steward of the nation’s public lands seriously. That’s a good thing, because sportsmen and women from all over the country take it seriously, too.

Editor’s Note: Gregory Moore is a communications specialist for Trout Unlimited.

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