Charging the Bush administration with pushing federal actions that favor a large political contributor, environmental groups have attacked the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) plan to open up a two counties, Otero and Sierra, in southern New Mexico to oil and gas drilling.

They said the plan favors Yates Petroleum and the Yates family, which donated $250,000 to GOP groups over the last three years, including $90,000 in soft money directly to the Republican National Committee. The company and the BLM, however, deny the allegations, with BLM maintaining that no more than 5% of the disputed surface area or 2,400 acres out of 1.1 million acres, will be disturbed.

The environmentalists, which include the Campaign to Protect America’s Lands (CPAL), the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance and the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, lauded an alternative development proposal released Monday by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Among other things, Richardson’s plan would scale back the BLM’s proposal for the Otero Mesa region, a sensitive desert grassland within the much larger BLM planning area.

“Gov. Richardson deserves praise for standing up to the Bush administration’s unsound drilling plans for Otero Mesa,” said Peter Altman, director of CPAL. “The governor is saying ‘no’ to a one-sided plan that was developed contrary to local input. The BLM plan shows every sign of having been tailored in order to benefit the Yates family oil empire, which has a track record of major Republican party donations and ties to such individuals as Vice President Dick Cheney and embattled Interior Deputy Secretary Steven J. Griles.”

In January, BLM issued a proposed Resource Management Plan (RMP) Amendment covering oil and gas leasing and development in specific areas of two million acres of federal public lands. The plan does not approve individual projects, but provides overall guidance on managing public lands and federally owned minerals. It was prompted by oil and gas industry drilling interest following a successful gas exploration well in 1998.

The BLM plan includes conservation measures and drilling restrictions across large portions of the planning area No more than 5% of the surface within new leaseholds on 105,000 acres of grasslands on Otero Mesa and on the 16,000-acre Nutt grasslands in Sierra County may be disturbed, BLM ruled.

The original management plan for Sierra and Otero Counties was completed in 1986. However, it did not anticipate or plan for large-scale oil and gas leasing in the two counties. Following a sharp increase in nominations of federal lands for leasing in 1998, BLM saw the need to identify and study the impacts of potential increases in development of these resources. BLM deferred further leasing until a the RMP Amendment and Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) could be completed.

The BLM said it foresees about 140 wells could be drilled in the two-county area, of which 84 would result in economically recoverable resources. This level of activity would account for 1,600 acres of short-term and 800 acres of long-term surface disturbance from well pads, roads, and pipelines, BLM said.

Contrary to those predictions, however, environmentalists charge that the BLM’s revised Otero Mesa plan ignored state input by “calling for nearly unlimited drilling in virtually all of the 1.1 million acre Otero Mesa region, jeopardizing an aquifer that can supply drinking water for 800,000 people.”

According to a report by CPAL, Deputy Interior Secretary Griles continues to be paid $284,000 per year by National Environmental Strategies (NES), a lobby firm that still counts a Yates company as a paying client.

©Copyright 2004 Intelligence Press Inc. Allrights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republishedor redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without priorwritten consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.