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Cattle rancher Chris Velasquez hadn't worked with environmentalists - that was until his family's land was pocked by destructive oil and gas wells.

The Bush Administration's Energy Plans Open Public and Private Lands to Destructive Oil and Gas Exploitation

Cattle rancher Chris Velasquez hadn't worked with environmentalists - that was until his family's land was pocked by destructive oil and gas wells. "This was good range, but I don't think there's any bringing it back. These energy companies just dig up the country and keep on rolling," Chris laments.

Chris has a permit to graze cattle on 20,000 acres on some of New Mexico's public lands, where there are already 373 wells, with 70 more recently approved. His 320 acres of private rangeland have 10 wells on them so far. The reason his land is now in peril? In the West, private land owners often own only what's on the surface, not what's underground. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) leases the underground rights to energy and mining companies, allowing them to build wells, roads, fences, and pipelines on the surface - without the permission of landowners.

Now, the Bush administration wants to build nearly 12,500 new wells on public and private land over the next twenty years,1 a plan causing a drilling frenzy in sensitive areas of New Mexico and the Rocky Mountain West.

Over the last three years, the Bush administration has repeatedly placed the profits of the oil and gas industry over that of Western land owners and ranchers. Shortly after briefing Congress about research indicating that hydraulic fracturing, one drilling method, could lead to unsafe levels of benzene in drinking water, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a draft report reversing their position, to allow hydraulic drilling, saying the change was "based on feedback" from an industry source.2

Chris has lost more than 80 animals and has had to fight for reimbursement for each one from the oil and gas companies. Wildlife have been poisoned by toxic chemicals left by the industry, ranch gates have been left open so livestock escape, rangeland has been scraped and cleared for wells, and soil eroded by poorly constructed company roads.

Chris and several of his fellow ranchers got so fed up with what they see as oil and gas development run amok, that they locked the gates to their private land. "You can talk all you want," says Chris, "but they don't respond to nothing but strong tactics."

Not surprisingly, during the 1999-2000 election cycle, George W. Bush was the top recipient of campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry - totaling almost $2 million dollars.3

Chris knows New Mexico can help meet the country's energy needs. He also knows we can do better than recklessly drilling. We need to balance our use of land with recreation, conservation, preservation of cultural lands, as well as energy development. Unfortunately, the Bush administration is pursuing an aggressive policy that opens up an unprecedented amount of the American landscape to destructive drilling. Balance is a better way.

Excerpts of this story from Sierra Magazine's "A Cowboy's Lament" by Marilyn Berlin Snell published July 2003.

For more information contact:

1. "Notice of Availability of the Farmington Proposed Resource Management Plan and Final Environmental Impact Statement, Farmington Field Office," NM, 68 fed. Reg. 16545-6, April 4, 2003, available at, http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-IMPACT/2003/April/Day-04/i5895.htm.
2. Letter from Rep. Henry A. Waxman to EPA Secretary Christine Todd Whitman, Oct. 8, 2002, available at, http://www.house.gov/reform/min/pdfs/ pdf_inves/pdf_enviro_epa_hydraulic_oct_8_let.pdf.
3. Center for Responsive Politics, available at: www.opensecrets.org/industries/ recips.asp?Ind=E01&Cycle=2000&recipdetail=A&Mem=N&sortorder=U.