Bush May Expand Oil, Gas Drilling in Rockies
The Bush administration will weigh opening some off-limits areas of the Rockies to oil and gas drilling as part of a sweeping review of untapped energy resources, Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton said Monday.
A 1999 study by the National Petroleum Council, an industry advisory group, said that about 10% of the country’s total reserves of natural gas are beneath the Rockies but that 40% of the deposits are off-limits to drilling.
In 1997, the U.S. Forest Service banned drilling in areas of the Lewis and Clark National Forest in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and northern Utah that are rich in oil and gas deposits.
“We want to ensure that energy production is taking place in those areas where the environment can most tolerate that,” Norton said.
However, she said she and Bush support current moratoriums on new offshore drilling in California and Florida. “That certainly would continue,” she said.
Norton said it was “still under discussion exactly what format the proposal would take” on Arctic oil drilling.
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