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Reps. Salazar, Udall will seek one-year delay
June 11, 2007
By Nick Martin
Denver Post Staff Writer
Some of Colorado's top elected officials are preparing to battle a federal agency over its plan to allow drilling on vast amounts of the Roan Plateau.
U.S. Reps. Mark Udall and John Salazar will try this week in Congress to put a one-year hold on the plan, their staff members said Sunday.
Publication info
This story originally ran June 11, 2007 in the Denver Post.
Meantime, Gov. Bill Ritter said he will back the congressmen's efforts. He criticized the Bureau of Land Management, which announced Friday that it would lease 70 percent of the plateau for drilling without giving state officials time they sought to review the plan.
"No harm would have come from (the extra time)," Ritter said by phone Sunday from South Dakota, where he is attending the annual Western Governors' Association meeting. He added, "We're hoping that Reps. Salazar and Udall would be able to delay that funding."
The delay would come from an amendment the congressmen will try to add to a bill giving the BLM more than $1 billion. The bill is expected to reach the House floor this week.
The political wrangling began last week, when the bureau told Ritter it would not give his administration an extra four months to review its plan, seven years in the making, that allows companies to lease land in the Roan wilderness area and drill for gas.
Some of Colorado's officials felt the way the announcement came down was brash.
"I thought it was pretty arrogant, frankly, to release the plan when they did," said Alan Sala zar, Udall's chief of staff.
But on Sunday, a spokesman for the BLM's Glenwood Springs office, which oversees the Roan Plateau area, said the agency was just doing what Congress had ordered it to do.
"Right now, we're under direction from Congress to lease it," said spokesman David Boyd. "But should we get new direction, then we'll follow it."
Boyd said there is a 60-day period during which anybody can comment on the plan. At the end of the period, the bureau will review all comments and act accordingly, he said.
Residents who live near the plateau have long been concerned about added drilling in the area.
"This is just a very pristine piece of land that people are concerned about because it does generate money for the local economy," said Salazar spokeswoman Tara Trujillo.
But Boyd emphasized that the plan was the result of years of meetings and talks with residents and local officials in and around Rifle, Glenwood Springs and Parachute, and the counties of Garfield and Rio Blanco.
Neither Ritter, nor the staffers for Udall and Salazar, would say explicitly what should be done with the Roan Plateau. But none ruled out drilling.
As Ritter said: "That's the whole reason that we wanted the extra time."