January 07, 2010 02:01 AM UTC

State GOP Attack Ken Salazar, as Sect. Announces New O&G Policies

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• by: ClubTwitty

(Gee, the timing of the attack on Secretary Salazar seems so…coincidental, doesn’t it? – promoted by Middle of the Road)

The Colorado Senate Republican spin machine that up until a day or two ago was churning out near daily news releases attacking Bill Ritter, has suddenly targeted Sect. Ken Salazar.

Josh Penry is wasting no time in his promise to continue his blindly partisan attacks, no matter the target or intervening facts. The one-time gubernatorial candidate and retiring state senator takes the leading role in the latest e-blast purportedly from ‘COLORADO STATE SENATE/STATE CAPITOL/DENVER 80203’

Denver, Colorado – Senate Republican Leader Josh Penry (R-Grand Junction) today blasted Interior Secretary Ken Salazar after the Obama appointee announced a plan to impose onerous new regulations on the development of clean, domestic natural gas across some 260 million acres of federal land.

Like state-level rules authored by Governor Bill Ritter and approved by the Democrat-controlled state legislature last year, Salazar’s proposal would erect additional bureaucratic hurdles that energy companies would have to clear before drilling on federal lands.

Glad soon-to-be-former Sen. Penry is such a careful steward of the public’s dime, as I am sure he would never use the public office to electioneer or to shill for a certain industry. That would be unseemly indeed.

Sect. Salazar, even as the GOP is servicing the oil and gas industry, seems to be working in the public interest, today dodging questions on if he will run for Governor and instead announcing new oil and gas leasing policies.

These policies (which involve leasing rather than developing and thus are not really analogous to the state regulations, something I suspect Penry understands) has the GOP oil and gas waterboys state legislators so in a tizzy.  

The trend under Bush was to lease anything and everything that the industry ‘nominated’ if it wasn’t specifically prohibited from drilling, often under land use plans that were decades out of date.

Sect. Salazar announced today that that would change, according to stories in many newspapers, including this pretty detailed article in the Deseret News:

“The previous administration’s ‘anywhere, anyhow’ policy on oil and gas development ran afoul of communities, carved up the landscape and fueled costly conflicts that created uncertainty for investors and industry,” Salazar said.

The basic gist of the changes seem to be new requirements for more thorough review prior to offering public lands up to oil and gas development.

…That deeper analysis will allow field offices to study whether drilling may adversely affect wilderness values, air quality, archaeological values, watersheds, wildlife and nearby land uses, and how to lessen adverse effects. They will use interdisciplinary teams to evaluate each parcel, allow public comment, and, when necessary, visit the parcels.

“Some BLM officials in the past were told that their job, first and foremost, was to sit at their desk and to review and approve industry drilling permit applications, often without adequate time to inspect those permits and ensure compliance with the law,” Salazar complained.

Salazar said that led during the George W. Bush administration to allowing leases in “areas that were in municipal watersheds, areas that involved important wildlife habitats, lands with wilderness characteristics, and lands that were close to national parks,” and resulted in 40 percent of all leases in 2008 being protested as opposed to just 1 percent that was protested in 1998.

BLM Director Bob Abbey said, “We do anticipate there may be a slowdown in the reviewing the number of parcels that have been nominated for leasing to allow us to conduct these reviews,” and some areas where drilling previously was allow no longer will be.

Hoping for a windfall in their campaign coffers, the state GOP apparently sees no risk in peddling their political flesh to the boys from Houston (figuratively speaking, of course).

Meanwhile bands of tea partisans appear to be talking revolt, with one tribe recently endorsing the Cowboy Colonel (McConnell) for the 3rd CD over mainstream Republican Scott Tipton.  

And maybe a wealth of oil and gas money (and c4s) can buy enough votes to bridge the political divide between the baggers and the middle, and stitch together a GOP win.  But as Sect. Salazar does his job with an eye toward the broader public interest, the Colorado GOP and it’s tired cheerleading for oil and gas suddenly looks weak and frightened.