WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has proposed "energy corridors" that could mar the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Arches National Park, Flaming Gorge and about 20 other protected areas in Utah, according to an analysis released Thursday by the Wilderness Society.

The administration has proposed 6,000 miles of 3,500-foot-wide energy corridors in 11 Western states — including 640 miles in Utah — that could be used for future oil, gas and hydrogen pipelines, as well as electric transmission and distribution facilities.

"That's where a significant amount of our industrial and consumer growth is going to happen in the United States — in the West and Southwest," Department of Energy spokesman Jonathan Shradar said. "Demand for electricity will increase, and on the federal lands, these corridors will be sufficient to meet that demand."

In the 2005 Energy Bill, Congress asked several federal agencies to identify potential corridors on federal lands to help keep up with the nation's growing energy needs. The Departments of Interior, Energy, Agriculture, Commerce and Defense issued the West-Wide Energy Corridor Draft Programmatic environmental impact statement on Nov. 8, and a notice is scheduled to appear in the Federal Register today.

Public comment will be accepted until Feb. 14, and two public hearings are scheduled in Salt Lake City on Jan. 17.

Liz Thomas of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance said there has to be a better place to put a pipeline than adjacent to Dinosaur National Monument or through the Glen Canyon recreation area.

"Utah is not benefiting from this," Thomas said. "We could put these corridors in less sensitive places."

The corridors include proposed routes through portions of Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, which straddles the Utah-Wyoming border.

The Wilderness Society found that the proposed corridors threaten six national wildlife refuges, three national parks and seven national monuments in the West and more than 60 current and proposed wilderness areas. Outside of Utah, the corridors would affect the Havasu National Wildlife Refuge on the Arizona-California border and New Mexico's Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, among many others.

Thomas said the proposed corridors are the "energy industry's want list," and the government clearly did not look at alternatives when picking the paths. She said one would think a national monument or wilderness designation would deter an area from being considered for a corridor, but that was not the case.