Editorial: Same old drill

Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2007 | 7:14 a.m.

The Bush administration's new Bureau of Land Management director says the White House's aggressive push for more oil and natural gas drilling is going to continue, regardless of increases in public opposition or talk of renewable energy sources.

Jim Caswell, who was appointed to the BLM's top post in August, told the Associated Press in a story Saturday that "there's absolutely no doubt" the agency is going to continue approving drilling permits at the current rate, which means the BLM will grant about one of every four applications submitted.

The nation's largest land-based energy reserves are in the Western states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Nevada. Bush is focused on reducing dependence on foreign oil and increasing domestic production, Caswell told AP, so the BLM has no intention of slowing its permit process.

When asked how drilling policy was affected by the shift to Democratic leadership in Congress and also in such energy-producing states as Colorado - where a Democrat is now governor - Caswell told AP that talk of backlash from voters is "to some degree overblown."

Really? A fair number of Republicans who were replaced in 2006 may beg to differ - especially in Western states, where ranchers and hunting enthusiasts oppose drilling on public lands once used for grazing or sport.

Caswell's attitude also illustrates that the Bush administration's talk of developing renewable energy sources is just that - talk. It is difficult to imagine that the White House is seriously considering alternatives when it is pushing the BLM to aggressively approve drilling permits.

In a Sept. 30 editorial we noted figures from a Western Governors' Association task force showing that untapped geothermal sites in the West could produce an amount of energy equivalent to 15 nuclear power plants or 30 coal-fired plants. Even automakers are developing vehicles that are more efficient or run on something other than conventional oil.

There are alternatives, but they can't thrive in an administration that views energy's future through such a narrow scope.