Posted on 11/06/2010 6:22:51 PM PDT by CedarDave
Gov. Bill Richardson has taken another step in his effort to protect sweeping grasslands on the Otero Mesa in southern New Mexico by urging President Barack Obama to designate 1.2 million acres of federal land a national monument.
Richardson's move was welcomed by conservationists, but received a cool response from the Oil and Gas Association and Congressman-elect Steve Pearce.
While the president could designate Otero Mesa a national monument by executive order and bypass congressional approval, New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman prefers that a consensus around such a designation is developed before that step is taken, said spokeswoman Jude McCartin.
"The local groundswell of support has not yet been achieved," McCartin said Friday.
Otero Mesa has been at the center of a nine-year struggle over whether the Bureau of Land Management should allow natural gas extraction.
~~snip~~
Steve Henke, president of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, said he preferred an earlier BLM plan, challenged by the state, that allowed for restricted oil and natural gas leases, and he said he doubted monument designation has local support.
Steve Pearce, a Republican who defeated Democratic incumbent Rep. Harry Teague in Tuesday's election, questioned the cost of monument designation in terms of lost economic development and management costs. "We've got a lot of questions, and to be suggesting that we get this done by the end of the year is, in my mind, too rushed, too hurried," Pearce said.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
I suspect Obama will give him what he wants before Richardson leaves office in 45 days.
NM list PING!
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LOL...had it been 1.2 million solar panels....No problemo.
But it’ll be OK to plant a forest of the damn windmills!
Just cut off all electricity to Richardson which has been generated by fossil fuels or nuclear power. Oh, and while you are at it, stop the delivery of all foodstuffs, supplies and material to him that have been transported on fossil fuel vehicles. You know, like trucks, trains and aircraft.
One more thing; Richardson has to walk, ride a horse or a bicycle. No more fossil fueled transportation for him either.
The President by fiat can do something like that??
Where in the Constitution did we get a dictator?
Gov Ed wants to tax the possibility of drilling in Marcellus shale out of existence. Of course the usual "useful idiots" of the left are demonstrating in support of Gov Ed and the ban on drilling.
I have to get out or PA!
You don’t remember Clinton’s last day in office? I think his national monument land grab was called Escalante but I could be wrong on the name and/or spelling.
NM will be much better off when this self-serving bag of slime oozes his way out of Santa Fe.
Out going Democrat politicians, governors or legislators, are disregarding the 2010 electorate’s wishes on less government and less regulations that hold back our economy by trying these last minute land and power grabs.
We have to stop them by yelling loudly at them and by everything possible as rolling back such moves can be difficult.
Not quite true. You have to build roads into the area and create a drilling pad several hundred feet square for the drilling rig, mud pits (closed loop), support equipment, frac tanks, etc. A surface casing will be drilled and installed to protect fresh water.
When all equipment has left you will have an unobtrusive well head, an oil/gas/water separator and maybe a couple of small tanks to store water and oil from the well. These days all tanks and such are placed on liners and bermed so that any spills are contained and nothing goes on the ground. A pipeline to connect the wells to a to-be-built compressor station must be dug and buried and then a connection to a pipeline to market must be constructed.
How about Obama just nationalize all land and get it over with?
Obama saved this criminals rear end by calling off the Dept of Justice and seeing to it that he escaped prosecution.
Someone should arrest this human garbage and declare him incapable of serving out the rest of his term.
Richardson is a pig and undoing all the damage he has done to NM is going to take years. Unfortunately, the vestiges of his trash will still be safely tucked in nice, comfortable, State jobs and will continue to cost the taxpayers in NM.
Close off the grasslands from economic development to get back at New Mexicans for voting in a Republican governor. That I say would be the real motivation. The politics of punishment, revenge, and putting independent hard working people in there place is the Obama way.
vaudine
As somebody who lives in the middle of the Barnett Shale, I can affirm that the environment is essentially unchanged -- a few more gravel roads across a few more pastures, an unobtrusive drilling pad in the middle of the pasture with some plumbing atop it.
Visually, the environment isn't damaged at all. A new barn would leave a bigger footprint.
The enviro-Luddites have been actively trying to make trouble by claiming the drilling is causing groundwater damage, noxious odors and earthquakes (yes, earthquakes).
They have yet to prove a damn thing. And they won't be able to, either. We've been drilling wells in Texas for over a hundred years now.
***When all equipment has left you will have an unobtrusive well head, an oil/gas/water separator and maybe a couple of small tanks to store water and oil from the well. ****
I used to build those things at the steel shops in Farmington! Amrican Tank & Steel and production Equipment Corp. I see Olman Heath is still there.
The land can be restored afterward. I lived in two gas camps at Governador back in 1955-56. I went out there not long ago and could not find where one camp had been even though I had a map. I did locate the school we went to (Gomez Ranch).
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