A second term would likely see more of the same as the administration seeks to expand energy production in the Rocky Mountain West and ease the government burden on ranchers and recreationists in the Republican-leaning states.

"America must have an energy policy that plans for the future, but meets the needs of today," Bush has said. "I believe we can develop our natural resources and protect our environment."

Over the past several weeks, Interior Secretary Gale Norton has been travelling the country announcing new environmentally friendly policies, including banning mining along three rivers in eastern Utah. Environmental groups say she is trying to "greenwash" the Bush record and shudder to think what a second term could hold.

"I think what you can see is that it will be an ongoing pattern of trying to undermine public land protection through a pattern of dishonesty . . . that will only be turbo-charged because there will no longer be the need to pull the wool over the public's eyes," said Scott Groene, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

In 2003, Norton cut a deal to lift protection for 3 million acres of potential wilderness in Utah identified during the Clinton administration. Her department has also sought to grant counties and states ownership of thousands of roads criss-crossing federal lands, reform grazing rules and drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

"It's a basic campaign issue all the time," said Manuel Lujan Jr., the Interior Secretary under President George H.W. Bush. "The Democrats always want to close it up and the Republicans want to take a look at it."

Several initiatives launched in Bush's first term are expected to carry over into a second, said Robert Keiter, director of the Wallace Stegner Center at the University of Utah law school.

"My guess is it would continue to be a focus and there would be some expansion and this would provide an opportunity to really cement in place some of the administrative reforms that they have proposed," Keiter said.

While the policies remain the faces may change. Observers expect Norton may leave the secretary post, particularly if she can get a federal judgeship. Some speculate Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt may leave the Environmental Protection Agency to take her place.

BLM Director Kathleen Clarke, the former director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, also may depart, although some close to her say she is happy in her job and is making plans for her office into next year. A spokeswoman said there have not been any discussions on Clarke's future in the department.

A driving principle behind the Bush land policy has been to cut red tape. The result is evident in the Healthy Forest Act, which streamlined environmental studies for timber projects aimed at fire prevention. The White House has added millions of dollars to those projects, treating 2.7 million acres to prevent wildfire, including 27,000 acres in Utah forests.

It has also restored 100,000 acres of Utah habitat, an accomplishment heralded by Utah anglers and hunters, many of whom are backing Bush despite concerns about the expansion of oil and gas drilling.

"I don't like to go out and see oil wells and stuff, but its kind of hypocritical when you drive your truck out there," said Don Peay, founder of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife and a leading Bush fund-raiser. "In my opinion the 'no management' policy under Clinton was a lot more detrimental to wildlife than Bush's oil and gas mining."

The pressure to drill in the Rockies is on because Americans need domestic energy and the Rockies is the only region that has showed increased production in the last decade, said Kathleen Eccleston, a spokeswoman for the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States. In short: That's where the oil and gas is.

"There's this misperception that Mr. Bush has just opened the floodgates for the petroleum industry and the industry has rushed to reap these benefits," she said. "The real reason there is increased interest in the Rockies has little to do with politics and more to do with geology."

The White House has also proposed grazing reform, erasing several Clinton-era changes, and wants to streamline the National Forest Management Act to limit environmental studies and potential legal challenges, Keiter said.

Final decisions are expected after the election, as is a determination on rescinding the Roadless Rule, which put 60 million acres of national forests off-limits to most logging and development. Bush's proposal would reopen that land, but allow governors petition to preserve certain forest areas.

Another post-election decision will be whether to list the sage grouse, a small bird that lives in western rangelands, on the Endangered Species List. Western governors oppose the listing, as do oil and gas interests and off-road vehicle users. If the White House is forced to protect the sage grouse, there could be a renewed effort in Congress to reform the act.

A second round of resource management plans, which determine how the public lands will be used, is expected in the coming year and will lay out how much grazing, mining recreation or preservation is in store for federal lands and forests. That second round of plans likely will include planning for the Vermillion Cliffs in Kane County, the Arizona Strip in northern Arizona and extreme southern Utah, and areas near Price.

Likewise, the Bureau of Land Management has accelerated its permitting of new oil and gas drilling and could seek other ways to speed the process and minimize litigation. The urgency has been heightened by highest-ever prices for oil. Part of the solution may include charging the industry to offset the costs of additional staffing and costs.

Despite the intense focus on increasing oil and gas drilling, domestic production still has been unable to keep pace with consumption, leaving the nation more dependent on foreign oil than when Bush took office.

The mining sector has been a growth sector for the state, adding 200 jobs since 2001 as the unemployment rate statewide has climbed, with 16,200 additional people unemployed, according to figures from the Utah Division of Workforce Services.