Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead told federal officials Thursday that his state’s Bighorn Basin can increase energy development and environmental protection — they are not mutually exclusive — but he cannot support any of the draft alternatives currently proposed. Mead offered comments on the federal Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) draft resource management plan (RMP) and draft environmental impact state (DEIS) for the basin.

Mead made it clear that he hopes “a reasonable course” for managing BLM lands can be part of the ongoing process. Examples of unreasonable draft provisions would be provisions that Mead said would “prohibit routine production operations” in crucial winter range areas.

“I would strongly oppose BLM’s proposal to apply wildlife seasonal protections for surface-distribution and disruptive activities to the maintenance and operation of development projects on a case-by-case basis,” he said.

The planning and environmental assessment covers land controlled by both BLM and the state through the Wyoming state trust lands over the next 20 years. “There is no way to disconnect the path pursued by the BLM from either the economic future of the cities, towns and counties in the planning area or from Wyoming’s ability to responsibly manage state trust lands to the maximum benefit of its beneficiaries,” Mead said in a 17-page document sent to BLM’s Donald Simpson.

Mead is suggesting a blending of the alternatives to better balance job growth and economic opportunities into the resource and environmental planning for an area of his state that he said holds “an impressive amount of potential energy” in existing wells.

Among his suggestions, Mead said BLM should expand its oil and gas management areas by nearly 25,000 acres to encompass what he called “all federal surface and minerals.” In another section, he said the draft RMP and DEIS “fail to discuss advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies,” despite the fact that they are “unlocking commercial oil [production] rates from tight oil sands in the Turner, Parkman and Sussex formation and shale oil from the Niobrara and other Cretaceous shales in other basins in Wyoming.”

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