The oil and natural gas industry is urging the Bureau of Land Management to give states and industry stakeholders a greater role in developing a national greater sage grouse management plan that must balance conservation with energy development on public land.

At issue is BLM's developing "National Greater Sage Grouse Planning Strategy," which will guide management of the imperiled bird across the 47 million acres of grouse habitat overseen by the agency in 10 Western states.

The agency is developing an environmental impact statement (EIS) to analyze specific grouse management strategies, and it plans to amend as many as 98 resource management plans.

BLM wants to finalize a national grouse plan by late 2014. The Fish and Wildlife Service, which has placed the grouse on a list of "candidate species" worthy of federal protection, must make a final determination on whether the grouse should be listed as endangered by 2015.

A coalition of oil and gas industry trade groups submitted public scoping comments to BLM last week that raise a lot of concerns about the future of oil and gas development on federal land at a time when President Obama has touted his administration's commitment to developing traditional domestic energy resources.

The Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, which represents about 400 oil and natural gas companies, stated in scoping comments submitted Friday to BLM that preliminary recommendations by the agency's National Technical Team are "excessively restrictive" on drilling, and that any attempt to impose additional restrictions to existing, valid oil and gas leases would be illegal.

In addition, restrictive oil and gas development policies violate the Energy Policy Act of 2005, "which requires federal land management agencies to ensure that the least restrictive stipulations are utilized to protect resource values," Spencer Kimball, Western Energy Alliance's government affairs manager, wrote in the group's nine-page scoping comments.

These sentiments are echoed in scoping comments submitted Friday by a coalition of industry trade groups that includes the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, the Montana Petroleum Association, the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, the Utah Petroleum Association and Public Lands Advocacy.

The coalition is concerned about National Technical Team recommendations that, among other things, would prohibit surface disturbance activity within 4 miles of sage grouse breeding areas, called "leks."

"It will have a dramatic impact on the state and local economies where the sage grouse exist if they go ahead and impose the kinds of restrictions that BLM has come up with through the National Technical Team," said Claire Moseley, executive director of Denver-based Public Lands Advocacy, in an interview this week. "I just hope that BLM takes a step back and realizes that what they're planning to do will have a huge impact on the economy of not just the Western states but the national economy."

Ongoing concern

Other industry groups, including those representing the cattle and livestock and the mining industries, have also submitted comments to BLM expressing concerns with the proposed sage grouse plan.

But the oil and gas industries could be especially affected in states like Wyoming, which is one of the nation's largest oil and gas producers but is also home to more than half the world's remaining grouse.

There have already been several clashes between the oil and gas industry and BLM over two instructional memorandums (IMs) the agency issued in December that are designed as temporary measures while it works to develop the final planning strategy.

For example, BLM last year removed more than 40,000 acres from an oil and natural gas lease sale in Nevada because the parcels encroached on greater sage grouse habitat, a move that drew widespread industry criticism (Land Letter, Dec. 15, 2011).

This move and others have drawn scorn from GOP congressional leaders in the West, who have ripped the Obama administration's land-use polices as stifling economic development in rural areas where oil and gas drilling represent one of the few alternatives for high-paying jobs.

That's what most concerns Western Energy Alliance, Kimball said this week.

BLM's proposed policy could "unreasonably restrict oil and natural gas development on public lands," he said in a statement, adding that would "fail to balance investment and job creation with reasonable species protection."

Mitch Snow, a BLM spokesman in Washington, D.C., downplayed any concerns that the grouse management plan that's ultimately finalized would be overly burdensome on the oil and gas industry.

"The whole point of this exercise is to ensure that we do maintain some ability to benefit from natural resources on public land" while working to keep the grouse off the Endangered Species List, Snow said.

He said the agency would weigh industry's concerns and incorporate them into any final sage grouse plan. "That's part of the process, and we're very serious about that."

State action

But states like Utah and Montana are developing their own sage grouse management plans that they want BLM to adopt in any national policy.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) in January authorized a committee of up to 20 people representing the energy, ranching and agriculture industries; environmentalists; state government officials; BLM; and FWS to develop a state sage grouse management plan.

Utah's plan would follow the example set in 2008 by Wyoming, which involves identifying core sage grouse areas that are vital to the bird's survival and discouraging development within core area boundaries.

The goal of the Utah effort is to complete the plan by May, at which time Herbert would likely issue an executive order to enact it (Land Letter, Feb. 2).

While Utah wants to keep the grouse off the Endangered Species List, the underlying priority for state leaders is to preserve economic development opportunities, particularly oil and natural gas.

Officials with BLM and FWS have said the agencies would not approve any state plan that's weaker than the temporary measures outlined in the two IMs in December.

"Most of the Western states are very concerned with how BLM is going about developing this plan," said Moseley, the Public Lands Advocacy official.

She added: "We think [BLM] should defer to the states. If states have plans, and they're approved by FWS, then it makes no sense for BLM to come up with something else."

Click here to read comments submitted by the Western Energy Alliance.

Click here to read comments submitted by the coalition of industry groups.

Streater writes from Colorado Springs, Colo.