Energy obstacles decried at meet

DENVER — The Rockies, from Montana to Mexico, are the single greatest source of untapped domestic energy in the lower 48 states, and the oil and gas industry needs to do more so lawsuits and other obstacles don't tie up vital resources on Western public lands, speakers at an energy conference said Monday.

Although environmentalists and people facing drilling on or near their land believe the pace of energy development is skyrocketing, industry representatives said they face too many obstacles.

"Through lawsuits and other actions, it's more and more difficult to get leases on public land," Duane Zavadil of the Bill Barrett Corp. said during a summit sponsored in part by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Association, a trade group.

The Rockies hold 224 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, or 41 percent of the reserves in the lower 48, Zavadil said. About 70 percent of the region's minerals are on federal land, he added.

"In most other countries that would be considered a good thing. We'd have some self determination in our source of natural gas," Zavadil said. "But the federal land management is in fact imposing requirements that limit access to 137 (trillion cubic feet) of that 224 tcf."

Creating more obstacles is litigation by environmental groups and protests of leases issued by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, said attorney Bret Sumner of the Washington-based law firm of Fulbright and Jaworski. He encouraged energy companies to get involved early and help head off lawsuits by hiring outside experts versed in "sound science" and pointing out potential problems to public officials.

The industry also needs to get its message to the public in the face of growing alliances among traditional environmentalists and hunters and anglers, said Ken Wonstolen, senior vice president and general counsel for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. He said while the groups typically have different political viewpoints, "it's an effective marriage of convenience right now."

"It's something we have to address very seriously in this industry," Wonstolen said.

Other worrisome signs include calls by such typically pro-industry politicians as Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., and Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., for limits on drilling, Wonstolen said.

Thomas has said national forests generally should be off-limits to drilling. Burns has proposed legislation banning new energy development on federal lands along Montana's Rocky Mountain Front, which environmentalists and hunting and fishing groups want left alone.