Frustrated and clearly angry Republican senators excoriated the national director of the Bureau of Land Management in a congressional hearing this week over land use polices, what they say are endless permitting delays or the imposition of projects not welcome in their home state.
“We live as subjects,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told BLM Director Tracey Stone-Manning. “Increasingly, the BLM under your leadership, seems to have taken an approach that manages these lands like a museum — it is a look but you cannot touch sort of approach that involves (lands) in people’s backyards. You can hardly throw a rock in any direction in Utah and not hit federal land.”
Stone-Manning testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for the first time in over three years — stoking another accusation that she and the agency have been unresponsive, out of touch and indifferent to states’ concerns over federally managed land.
“I represent 1.8 million angry people,” said Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, pointing to the Lava Ridge Wind Turbine Project in his state that at one point was proposed for 100,000 acres, with 400 towers standing 660 feet tall.
“Nobody wants this,” he said, stressing the energy beneficiaries are in California and despite across-the-board opposition, the agency is proceeding.
Stone-Manning said the BLM issued a final environmental review that shaves the proposal with its footprint, but Risch said it that wasn’t good enough. The Idaho Legislature, the impacted counties and Native American tribes were unanimous in their opposition but the agency intends to proceed, he added.
“I can’t find anybody who supports this from Idaho.”
Federal control in the West
Committee Chairman Joe Manchin, R-W.Va., said in his opening remarks that the BLM owns one of every 10 acres in the United States, but added that ownership is sparse in his home state.
“As an American, I’m always astonished at how much land in the United States is managed by the federal government, especially in the Western states. My sympathy to all of you.”
He said that type of control is impacting critical coal leases in the West and energy infrastructure that threatens the grid, including a nearly 300-mile transmission line across Oregon and Idaho that has been in the permitting process for 18 years.
“When complete, the 500-kilovolt line would deliver badly needed energy, increased liability to the nation’s electric grid. But just when the developer thought they were about to cross the finish line, BLM decided to restart the previously completed cultural and historical surveys,” Manchin said. “I’ve heard similar challenges with geothermal developers where nearly 30% of their capital is tied to just environmental reviews. They simply cannot afford to be stuck in the endless permitting nightmare while the remaining financial support rides on whether they can ever obtain a permit to start commercial operations to produce geothermal energy — that shows how bad the problem is.”
Stone-Manning said a lot of the delays are due to workload capacity and the mission by the agency to make “durable” decisions that not only address multiple-use of federal lands but promote prudent environmental stewardship to ensure landscape health.
“New and growing challenges over the past few decades have made it more difficult for the BLM to achieve this careful balancing of the many resources and uses of public lands and what they offer to all Americans. As the stewards for more than more land than any other agency, we’ve experienced increasingly negative effects associated with climate change — including extreme drought, elevated and longer fire seasons and greater disruption to sensitive species of wildlife and plants,” she said.
“To address these challenges, the BLM aims to prioritize landscape health in order to ensure that our public lands can provide the countless resources and experiences that they always have.”
But many of the GOP members on the committee pointed to the Biden administration’s outright “war” on fossil fuels as the primary driver of many of BLM’s decisions to delay projects, including coal leases and pipelines.
Stone-Manning did not dispute the desire by the administration to move to a carbon-free energy landscape, but insisted that coal, natural gas and oil remain part of the energy mix — for now.
But Rep. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said the BLM is taking steps at present to remove energy development pulled from the Powder River Basin, which produces 45% of the coal mined in the United States.
“Wyoming’s coal production is the lifeblood of Gillette and northeast Wyoming. It supports tens of thousands of jobs. It helps fund K-12 public education in our state, and there is absolutely no reason to pursue this irresponsible and irrational proposal,” Barrasso said. “We all know that President Biden wants a carbon-free grid. As of now this is a pipe dream and according to experts the world over, without an extraordinary technological breakthrough, it will likely never happen. Never.”
Stone-Manning stressed potential Powder River Basin action is still pending and under review.
Rep. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, could barely contain her frustration at the hearing over restricted oil and gas development in her state.
“It feels like an onslaught to me and it’s not just me that’s noticing this. It is other people who are making a joke out of it.”
She pointed out there aren’t similar restrictions or sanctions on imports from Venezuela or Iran, but Alaska is a “red” state.
“It’s a joke here but it’s not a joke back home. It’s not a joke at all because it has direct consequences on our jobs and our revenues. It hurts our energy, our mineral security, despite the press releases coming out of the administration,” she said. “I am angry and frustrated.”
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