Applications to drill for oil and gas in the Vernal region are swamping Bureau of Land Management officials, so they are adding 17 experts and teaming with other agencies to speed their reviews.

The BLM Vernal Field Office is among locations in five Western states chosen for a pilot process to streamline the review of permit applications.

On Tuesday, the Interior Department announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding among federal agencies that will assist in the effort: Interior, the Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers. BLM field offices chosen for the pilot project are at Rawlins and Buffalo, Wyo.; Miles City, Mont.; Farmington and Carlsbad, N.M.; Grand Junction and Glenwood Springs, Colo., and Vernal.

"The main thing that it does is that it adds more capability," said Bill Stringer, manager of the Vernal Field Office, interviewed by telephone Tuesday afternoon.

The project is not supposed to change the outcome of reviews but put some zip into them. The Interior Department says the goal is to expedite processing of the permits "while maintaining environmentally responsible management of oil and gas resources on federal lands."

According to a press release from John Wright, Interior Department spokesman, the offices chosen for the pilot project process 70 percent of all applications for permits to drill that are submitted to the BLM.

According to the statement, the five states have "the highest potential for onshore domestic energy."

The agreement was crafted under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which specified the field offices that would be involved. It is a separate issue from the categorical exclusion policy recently implemented to speed up archaeological reviews for areas that have already undergone environmental studies.

According to Wright, the offices will be models to show how processing oil and gas permits can be expedited "through improved coordination while maintaining environmental protection." After three years, the department will report to Congress on the outcome.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton, quoted in the release, said the agreement has the force of law. "I am confident that the pilot offices will be ready for business soon," she added.

Stringer said he was asked to estimate what it would take to bring processing rates at the Vernal office up to the expectations built into federal law nearly 20 years ago. At that time, it was anticipated that action on applications could take place no sooner than 30 days after submitted, and probably within about 45 days.

But Utah's oil boom dramatically accelerated the filing of applications to drill. The Vernal office now takes from about 160 to 180 days to act on the request, because of the backlog. With complicated projects or those in environmentally sensitive regions, applications can take a year or a year and a half to process.