This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
By Stephen Bloch
Remember the tale of Chicken Little, who cried that "The sky is falling!"? Chicken Little is hit on the head by an acorn, whips his friends into a frenzy and convinces the others that the sky is falling, which ultimately leads to their being eaten by a fox. The moral of the story is not to believe everything you hear. This is still sound advice.
To hear Gov. Gary Herbert and Utah's congressional delegation tell it, times have never been harder for energy companies operating on public lands in Utah. Hardly a day seems to go by without Sen. Orrin Hatch complaining that the Bureau of Land Management isn't selling oil and gas leases fast enough, or Herbert imagining that the federal government is standing in the way of a robust energy sector. In other words, the sky is falling.
Don't believe it. The reality is that energy development in Utah is brisk.
The facts speak for themselves. According to The Salt Lake Tribune, at the end of 2011 the state of Utah had a record high number of 10,300 producing oil and gas wells, the majority of which are found on public lands. What's more, the Utah Division of Oil Gas and Mining reports that the number of drill permit approvals in 2010 and 2011 were two of the highest years for such approvals over the past 25 years. In 2011, about half of those permit approvals were on public lands.
The number of drill rigs operating in Utah also continues to climb and currently sits at 36, up from 27 just one year ago. At the end of fiscal year 2011 there were just under 4.5 million acres of BLM managed lands under lease, but just over 1.1 million acres in production. That roughly 5:1 ratio has stayed steady for years. Companies are sitting on millions of acres of leases but not developing them.
All the while, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar's oil and gas leasing reforms have taken hold, which have resulted in fewer lease sale protests and generally less acrimony. The 2010 landmark agreement between the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and other conservation groups and the Bill Barrett Corp., wholeheartedly supported by this Interior Department and the state of Utah, confirmed we don't have to sacrifice protecting Utah's wild public lands to develop its oil and gas reserves. There can be a middle ground.
If anything needs to be fixed, it is the wildly unbalanced BLM land use plans left on Utah's doorstep in 2008 as the Bush administration left office. Those plans opened more than 80 percent of eastern and southern Utah's BLM-managed lands to oil and gas leasing, including millions of acres of the state's wildest public lands. Reforming these and striking a better balance between preservation and development remains a priority for Utahns and the nation's conservation community.
But back to our story. Be skeptical and ask questions when Chicken Little, Henny Penny, Loosey Goosey and the other barnyard animals come crying that the sky is falling. The truth is that you can have robust energy development while still protecting Utah's wild lands.
Stephen Bloch is the energy program director and an attorney with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.