Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) last Wednesday called for an internal Interior Department investigation into a recently obtained e-mail from a Utah lobbyist that he believes suggests that agency officials may have conspired behind closed doors to “fix” new land-use plans to assure more oil and natural gas development on wilderness-quality lands in the state.

The disclosure of the e-mail comes on the heels of a federal court decision earlier this month in Salt Lake City, UT, that handed the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) a defeat in its fight to open up more federal lands to oil and gas leasing. The court ruled that BLM violated federal environmental laws when it sold leases on 16 parcels of so-called “wilderness-quality lands” in southern Utah (see related story).

“In making promises behind closed doors to certain parties who are primarily interested in maximizing the economic exploitation of these lands, BLM officials may have not only undermined the integrity of the agency’s land-use planning process, but may have made commitments that will result in the permanent impairment of the environmental integrity of these lands for generations to come,” wrote Hinchey in a letter to Interior Inspector General Early Devaney. Hinchey serves on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, which oversees BLM’s budget.

The e-mail in question came from Robert Weidner, a lobbyist for several Utah counties, and it reported on a July meeting with Henri Bisson, acting director of the BLM office in Utah, and Interior official Jim Hughes that addressed oil and gas and other issues in ongoing Utah BLM resource management plans (RMPs), according to Hinchey. Weidner’s e-mail to his clients said, “We as counties owe it [to] each other to strike while the iron is hot in finalizing these RMPs. As the governing documents over public lands for the next 20 years, working with the new state BLM director and state to ‘fix’ these RMPs is an opportunity which may never come.”

The “clear implication of the Weidner e-mail is that BLM and the Bush administration have breached the public’s trust. BLM has apparently agreed to manipulate its blueprint for managing the public’s lands to benefit the oil and gas industry,” said Stephen Bloch of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), which along with the Natural Resources Defense Council and The Wilderness Society, filed the lawsuit that led to BLM’s defeat in court earlier this month.

In response to the Weidner e-mail, Hinchey has asked Interior’s Inspector General to conduct an inquiry into the July meeting between Bisson, Hughes and Weidner, as well as into the larger question of whether the RMPs are being rigged in favor of the oil and gas industry.

The BLM contends that nothing out of the ordinary occurred at the July meeting. “It is fully appropriate for the BLM to meet with local governments at their request. Local governments are cooperating agencies in land-use planning,” as well as large organizations such as SUWA and local grassroots citizen groups, the BLM said.

“If the Department of the Interior’s Inspector General chooses to review this matter, the BLM is confident its involvement with cooperating agencies will be viewed as fully appropriate by parties from inside and outside of Utah.”

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