Interior boss says no to drilling on 8 Utah parcels

Eight of the 77 oil and gas lease parcels sold during a December auction that a saboteur wrecked and a federal judge later halted will be off-limits to drilling, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has decided.

Allowing development on the 7,670 public acres near Canyonlands and Arches national parks, Desolation Canyon and Nine Mile canyon could harm critical sage-grouse habitat with little obvious benefit to oil and gas development, concluded a 39-page analysis released Thursday.

During a Washington news conference, Salazar said 52 parcels would be held back pending further study and 17 would be allowed back at upcoming auctions.

Drawing from the report -- compiled by an 11-member team from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and Forest Service who examined more than 103,000 acres from the ground up -- Salazar scolded the Bush administration for allowing the Dec. 19 auction in Salt Lake City to go forward.

"The report demonstrates there was a headlong rush" to allow oil and gas companies to drill public land in areas, he said, that should not have been leased because of the ecological resources associated with them.

"It's a new day," Salazar said. "We came into the [Interior Department] on a reform agenda. It's a new beginning for us on how we deal with public lands and energy and our oil and gas leases. ... We'll continue to develop oil and gas in the right way."

Conservationists lauded the report.

"The report is a firm rejection of the 'drill here, drill now' policies of the Bush administration," said Steve Bloch, an attorney and conservation director with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, one of 11 conservation and historic-preservation organizations that sued to stop the auction. "It confirmed our belief that the December 2008 lease sale was a rushed approach to sell off some of America's most iconic landscapes."

The Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States said the Interior Department "chose redundant analysis over domestic energy development" and argued all 77 leases should be reinstated.

The Interior report found that field BLM office employees at times believed they were required by law to give greater deference to mineral-leasing proposals than to protection of other land uses.

"[The team members] don't think that anyone acted nefariously or did anything wrong," Salazar said. "But the fact is that our system's been set up in a way where the information that's made available to the BLM decision-makers is not very complete."

Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, interpreted its findings as a vindication of the BLM. Bennett had demanded the report as a condition for releasing a hold on confirmation hearings for Interior Deputy Director David Hayes earlier this year.

"This report proves what I've been saying all along -- that the Utah BLM office followed the proper procedures for reviewing the proposed lease parcels that were sold last year," Bennett said in a statement. "This report illustrates that rules only matter to [the Obama] administration when they produce certain results."

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, said that while he respects the report's authors, "their findings are insulting. If the policy of the Obama administration is to not develop America's energy resources, just come out and say it."

The 52 delayed leases will be studied to determine whether they can be developed in a way that takes into account drilling proposals and other resources, including wildlife, scenic values, ancient ruins and rock art, water and air quality and recreation.

Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said in a statement that "development of oil and gas on public lands should take a balanced approach, rather than the all-or-nothing dynamic that we've seen recently, "adding that he would like to see the 52 parcels reviewed in a timely manner.

The federal team spent nine days in southeastern Utah's desert, logging 14-hour days to test assumptions Utah BLM officials made.

"It has been a laboratory of learning," said Salazar, who promised reforms and a secretarial order in 30 days on how to proceed with public-land energy development.

The sale was the subject of a lawsuit before U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina when a University of Utah student, Tim DeChristopher, disrupted the auction by bidding and winning 14 parcels with no intention of paying, saying it was an act of civil disobedience to stop an illegal sale. He faces two felony charges.

The lawsuit has since widened to examine the resource-management plans finalized only days before the auction that allowed the leasing to go forward. Salazar said Urbina's rulings, including a temporary restraining order, indicated the BLM didn't properly follow federal law.