House Dems urge BLM to prevent illegal drilling

E&E News
By Phil Taylor
October 10, 2014

Leading House Democrats yesterday urged the Bureau of Land Management to strengthen its national policy for preventing illegal drilling for federal minerals, a practice that they warned increasingly threatens the environment and taxpayers.

The letter from Reps. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee, and Reps. Rush Holt of New Jersey and Jared Huffman and Alan Lowenthal of California comes shortly after the release of an Interior Office of Inspector General report that found BLM has a "weak" policy for deterring drillers from illegally tapping federal minerals and has no consistent way of catching them (Greenwire, Sept. 30).

With the increased use of horizontal drilling in places including North Dakota and Oklahoma, which have a patchwork of private and federal subsurface ownership, the risks of illegal production of federal minerals -- known as "trespass" -- and drilling without BLM's approval are expected to increase, the OIG report warned.

"We urge you to take the recommendations of the OIG seriously and enact strong and consistent policies that can help detect and deter trespass and [drilling without approval]," the lawmakers wrote to BLM Director Neil Kornze. "The potential economic and environmental costs ... can be substantial."

The OIG found that BLM learns of mineral trespassing or drilling without approval by "happenstance," such as when it is notified by a company or the Interior Office of Natural Resources Revenue.

The risks to taxpayers are acute in states with highly fragmented federal mineral ownership, such as oil-rich North Dakota and Oklahoma, where companies can easily access federal minerals from private lands.

In the past several years, BLM's North Dakota field office found about 10 cases of potential mineral trespassing and 70 cases of drilling without approval.

OIG also found that the two BLM regulations addressing unauthorized drilling are "ineffective deterrents" because one is too small and the other is costly and rarely used. One regulation written in the 1980s imposes a $5,000 fee for unpermitted drilling, which is paltry compared with the estimated $8 million to $12 million cost of completing a well in North Dakota, OIG said.

BLM said late last month that it was reviewing the OIG's recommendations closely and will "strengthen our policies and procedures."