Salazar Reforms Oil and Gas Lease Sales

http://www.doi.gov/news/09_News_Releases/031609.html

From the Department of the Interior:

March 16, 2009

Secretary Salazar Announces 2009 Oil and Gas Lease Sale Schedule

Stresses Balance of Traditional and Renewable Energy Resource Development on U.S. Public Lands

DENVER, CO – The Department of the Interior will hold more than 40 major lease sales for oil and natural gas development on public lands this year, which are predicted to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for American taxpayers as well as billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas to help meet the nation’s energy needs, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said today.

Salazar is also establishing the development of renewable and alternative energy sources on U.S. public lands as a Departmental priority and as a component of a comprehensive national energy strategy that will help the U.S. reduce its dependence on foreign oil.

“Oil, natural gas, and coal will play an important role in meeting our nation’s energy needs for many years to come,” Salazar said during a teleconference call with reporters from round the country. “But our long-term economic, environmental, and national security depends on our ability to lead the clean energy revolution. Our traditional energy resources are a bridge to our clean-energy economy of the future.”

Salazar will outline Interior’s plan to help responsibly develop America’s renewable and conventional energy resources in testimony to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday.

The Secretary noted that the Bureau of Land Management has already held seven onshore oil and gas lease sales in the last seven weeks, offering 830 leases that cover almost 1.2 million acres in the West. And 326 of those leases, totaling 254,000 acres, were sold, generating more than $32 million in revenues for the American taxpayers. BLM will hold an additional 32 oil and gas lease sales for onshore public lands around the country this year.

Salazar said he would be joining a Minerals Management Service lease sale on Wednesday that could produce up to a billion barrels of oil and 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas -- a full year’s supply of natural gas for America’s homes. That Sale 208 will offer 6,458 blocks on the Outer Continental Shelf, covering 35 million acres in the Central Gulf of Mexico Planning Area. This is the first of two Gulf of Mexico lease sales scheduled this year.

Wednesday’s sale includes the “181 South Area” and revenue from these leases will be included in immediate revenue-sharing with the four Gulf-producing States of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. The “181” area was opened for leasing in the Energy Security Act of 2006, which Salazar helped craft.

“I am particularly proud that thanks to a provision I authored in that legislation, 12.5 percent of the revenues will go directly to the Land and Water Conservation Fund stateside grant program to protect open space and build parks,” Salazar said. “It is America’s first permanent conservation royalty of its kind, and I look forward to talking more about it and President Obama’s vision for LWCF during my visit to the Gulf Coast.”

Emphasizing the need for clean-energy initiatives to balance our resource use, Salazar’s first Secretarial Order, issued last week, prioritized renewable energy development on U.S. public lands. “Through that order, I have established a task force to help identify renewable energy zones on public lands that are best suited for harnessing wind, solar, and geothermal power,” Salazar said. “The task force will also help us get moving toward siting and building the national electric superhighway system that President Obama has established as a priority for the country.”

Salazar also noted that the U. S. Geological Survey is releasing a report on carbon capture and sequestration that can help identify the best geologic formations in the country for carbon sequestration. “Rather than emit carbon into the air, our country can and should move toward capturing carbon emissions and storing them underground,” Salazar noted. USGS was directed to do the study by a legislative provision Salazar wrote in 2007.

On Thursday, Salazar also will meet with the board of directors of the American Petroleum Institute, including the CEO’s of America’s largest oil companies. “My message to them will be simple: they are, and will remain, an important part of our energy future. We need to work together on common sense solutions to the energy challenges we face. We share much common ground. We need an open and honest dialogue. And we need to move forward, with common purpose, to build a comprehensive energy plan for America.”

The Bureau of Land Management 2009 schedule of oil and gas lease sales is online at 
http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/energy/oil_and_gas/lease_sales.html

Salazar Removes Wolves from Endangered Species List

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090307/ap_on_sc/gray_wolf_endangered_5

From Associated Press Writers – Sat Mar 7

Feds OK gray wolves' removal from endangered list

BILLINGS, Mont. – Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Friday he was upholding the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's decision to remove gray wolves from the federal endangered list in the Northern Rockies and the western Great Lakes.

Wolves would remain a federally protected species in Wyoming because the state's law and management plans were not strong enough, he said. But management of the predator will be turned over to state agencies in Montana and Idaho and parts of Washington, Oregon and Utah, in addition to the Great Lakes states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The Obama administration had ordered a review of the decision made by the Bush administration shortly before departing. Salazar said he had concluded that dropping the wolf from the list was justified by its strong comeback in the two regions, which together have a population of nearly 5,600 wolves.

"The recovery of the gray wolf throughout significant portions of its historic range is one of the great success stories of the Endangered Species Act," he said in a conference call from Washington, D.C.

Wolves elsewhere in the Lower 48 states remain on the endangered list.

An influential lawmaker questioned the move and promised to investigate whether Salazar's decision is consistent with the Endangered Species act.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, said her staff would gather information to determine whether the move met the "letter and the spirit" of the law.

Courts have overturned previous attempts to remove the wolf from the list, and future legal battles appear likely.

Environmental groups immediately pledged a lawsuit over the estimated 1,600 wolves in the Northern Rockies. A federal judge in Missoula, Mont., last year sided with the groups when they filed a lawsuit saying the animal's long-term survival remained at risk, particularly in Wyoming.

The government in January came back with its plan to leave out Wyoming.

"What we had hoped was the new administration would have taken a deep breath and evaluate the science," said Jamie Rappaport Clark, vice president of Defenders of Wildlife and a former Fish and Wildlife Service director under President Bill Clinton.

"Whether it's (Bush Interior Secretary Dirk) Kempthorne or Secretary Salazar, the concern remains the same," she added. "It's the same plan that I fear doesn't protect the wolf's long-term sustainability."

Wyoming's attorney general previously said his state probably would challenge the latest plan in court.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has been unable to agree on a protection plan with Wyoming, which had sought a "predator zone" covering almost 90 percent of the state where wolves could be shot on sight.

"The scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Service do not feel the recovery plan is adequate in Wyoming," Salazar said. He said his department would work with Wyoming to "come up with a joint way forward."

The northern Rocky Mountain wolf segment includes all of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, the eastern third of Washington and Oregon and a small part of north-central Utah.

Idaho and Montana already have crafted plans for public hunts to keep wolf populations in check. There are no immediate plans for hunts in the western Great Lakes, which has nearly 4,000 wolves.

Idaho Gov. C.L. Butch Otter on Friday repeated his desire to get the first available wolf hunting tag in the state so he can try to shoot one of the animals.

"The fish and game population is really counting on a robust population of trophy animals to maintain that part of our economy," he said.

Salazar withdraws oil lease

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2009/02/23/daily46.html

From the Denver Business Journal:

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Interior’s Salazar withdraws oil lease offering

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is starting anew on a second round of oil shale leases for the development of technologies to mine crude oil locked in rocks under federal lands in western Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

The U.S. Department of the Interior said Wednesday a notice will appear on Friday in the Federal Register asking industry, local communities, states and stakeholders for their advice on the terms and conditions that should be included in the second round of leases.

The comment period will be open for 90 days.

Salazar, formerly a U.S. senator from Colorado, said in a statement he decided to withdraw a lease offering done in the last days of President George W. Bush’s administration “because it included several flaws, including locking in low royalty rates that would shortchange taxpayers.

“The previous administration offered their RD&D [research, development and demonstration] oil shale leases just days before leaving office, made the parcels four times the size of the current six RD&D leases, and then locked in low royalty rates and a premature regulatory framework for those leases,” he said.

“If oil shale technology proves to be viable on a commercial scale, taxpayers should get a fair rate of return from their resource.”

The first round of leases for research and development were issued in 2005.

“I applaud Secretary Salazar’s commitment to take a more deliberate look at the Bush administration’s hasty decision to offer a second round of oil shale research development and demonstration leases," Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter said Wednesday in a statement.

“Well-designed research and development efforts are a necessary first step to the kind of thoughtful and deliberate approach that oil shale requires," Ritter added. "We welcome the opportunity to provide input on how RD&D leases can best answer questions about what the significant implications of commercial-scale oil shale development means to Colorado’s Western Slope communities.”

Salazar Begins Reform

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2009/01/26/daily56.html

From the Denver Business Journal:

Friday, January 30, 2009

Salazar vows to clean up Minerals Management Service, Interior Department

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Thursday visited the Lakewood office of the scandal-rocked Minerals Management Service, which he now oversees.

Salazar, who until recently was a U.S. senator from Colorado, said Tom Strickland, his chief of staff, would lead a fresh probe of the conduct of some MMS employees as part of a review of Interior Department ethics rules.

Strickland is a former U.S. attorney for Colorado; Salazar is a former state attorney general.

“The American people ... have lost trust in the Department of the Interior, where ethical lapses and criminal behavior have extended to the highest levels,” Salazar told MMS employees at the Lakewood Federal Center, according to a transcript provided by his office.

“The former deputy secretary of this department went to prison,” Salazar said. “The public associates this department with Jack Abramoff. And the public knows of what happened here in Lakewood.”

MMS manages mineral resources on federal lands and collects royalties from mineral extraction. Last year it oversaw collection of $23 billion in mineral royalties.

Several local MMS employees were dismissed or punished in 2008 amid accusations that they took gifts from energy-industry executives, and that some used drugs or had sex with them. Critics of the agency called the scandal a sign that federal energy regulators have been too cozy with the industry they oversee.

In a separate scandal, former deputy Interior secretary Steven Griles was sentenced to prison in 2007 for obstruction of justice in the investigation of lobbyist Abramoff.

Salazar said he will consider restructuring MMS’s oil and gas royalty program.

“The president has made it clear that the type of ethical transgressions, blatant conflicts of interest, wastes and abuses that we have seen over the past eight years will no longer be tolerated,” Salazar told MMS employees. “The Department of the Interior will raise the bar for ethics, and we will set the standard for reform.”

Salazar Vows to "clean up the mess"

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2009/01/12/daily51.html

From Denver Business Journal:

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Senate holds confirmation hearing for Interior nominee Salazar

The U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a hearing Thursday on the confirmation of U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., to be secretary of the Interior.

At the hearing, Salazar vowed to "clean up the mess"at the scandal-plagued agency and to reform the nation's mining laws.

If confirmed, Salazar will oversee the Bureau of Land Management, which administers vast acreage in Colorado, as well as the nation's national parks.

Salazar Becomes Secretary of Interior

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2008/12/15/daily32.html

From Denver Business Journal:

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Salazar accepts Interior nomination

U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar on Wednesday accepted President-elect Barack Obama’s nomination to become the next secretary of the Department of the Interior.

Salazar is a Democrat who has represented Colorado in the Senate since 2005.

In accepting the nomination, Salazar said he “will do all I can to help reduce America’s dangerous dependence on foreign oil.”

He also said:

“I look forward to working directly with President-Elect Obama as an integral part of his team as we take the moon shot on energy independence.

“That energy imperative will create jobs here in America, protect our national security, and confront the dangers of global warming.

“I look forward to helping build our clean energy economy, modernize our interstate electrical grid, and ensure that we are making wise use of our conventional natural resources, including coal, oil, and natural gas.

“I look forward to protecting our national parks, public lands and open spaces, and America’s farm and ranchlands.

“I look forward to restoring our Nation’s rivers and working to resolve our water supply challenges.

“I look forward to helping to address the challenges faced by our Native American communities across the Nation.

“And I look forward to investing in America’s young people by implementing President-Elect Obama’s vision for youth programs across America.”

Obama had this to say about Salazar:

“Ken will bring to the Department of the Interior an abiding commitment to this land we love. His family has farmed and ranched the same land in Colorado for five generations. As a senator from the great state of Colorado, he has been a champion for farmers, ranchers, and rural communities -— from building a clean energy economy to setting aside 250,000 acres of Rocky Mountain National Park as wilderness.

“Before serving in the United States Senate, Ken was attorney general in Colorado, where he worked on a number of land, water, and environmental issues. As a water lawyer for a decade, Ken was also chosen to lead Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources. In that role, he promoted responsible water management, balanced use of our energy resources, and built one of the most successful land conservation efforts in the nation.

“Few are better equipped to meet the energy and natural resource challenges we face in the 21st century. Among the many responsibilities Ken will bear as our next secretary of the Interior is helping ensure that we finally live up to the treaty obligations that are owed to the First Americans. We need more than just a government-to-government relationship; we need a nation-to-nation relationship. And Ken and I will work together to make sure that tribal nations have a voice in this administration.”

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter praised Obama's choice, and said he would "work thoughtfully, deliberately and quickly to identify a successor to Sen. Salazar. With the economy in crisis and many other important issues facing the next Congress and the new Obama administration, Colorado must have the best talent at the U.S. Capitol.”

Salazar Named Secretary of Interior

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2008/12/15/daily18.html

From the Denver Business Journal:

Reactions to Ken Salazar Interior news

Congratulations are rolling in for U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, the presumptive nominee to become the nation’s next Interior secretary.

President-elect Barack Obama is expected to announce Salazar as his Interior choice later this week. Salazar would have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, in which he has served since 2005. Salazar is a Democrat who previously served as Colorado’s attorney general.

Several organizations and people issued statements Tuesday offering Salazar their congratulations and praising Obama’s choice.

From Marc Smith, executive director of the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States: “Sen. Salazar will provide a strong Western voice and will play a pivotal role in meeting the administration’s goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing energy security,” said IPAMS Executive Director Marc Smith.

From U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat from Colorado: “Sen. Salazar has been a leader on land, water and energy issues throughout Colorado and the West for decades. He is a fantastic senator and he will be an outstanding Secretary of the Interior. I know he will help President-elect Obama’s Administration preserve our Western values on these important issues.”

From Harris Sherman, director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources: “Sen. Ken Salazar is uniquely qualified for this critical assignment. There is no better person in the nation to step into this position. He will bring needed balance, judgment and experience to the nation’s natural resource programs during these pivotal times. This is great for the West and the entire country.”

From U.S. Attorney Troy Eid, who represents the district of Colorado: “Sen. Ken Salazar is a friend who has served Colorado with great distinction -— and will keep doing so as Interior Secretary.”