Interior Secretary Sees Lawsuits on Rockies Drilling

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http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-energy-rockies.html?pagewanted=print&position=

August 19, 2003
Interior Secretary Sees Lawsuits on Rockies Drilling
By REUTERS



Filed at 9:26 p.m. ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Plans by the Bush administration to streamline how it leases out federal lands for natural gas drilling in the Rocky Mountains are bound to be challenged in court by environmentalists, Interior Department Secretary Gale Norton said on Tuesday.

"We're anticipating litigation," Norton said on CNBC. "It's just something that we live with at the Department of the Interior."
Last week the Bush administration issued new policies, instructing Bureau of Land Management land-use planners to focus on seven specific areas in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, and New Mexico that may contain large oil and gas reserves. Environmental groups fear the new policy will ignore protections for the vast land in the western United States that may contain oil and natural gas. Norton said that even with ways to speed up the process of granting permits, production would not be expected for several years, meaning conservation had to be part of the picture.<snip>