The following opinion column was authored by Northern Plains member Kirk Panasuk. Kirk ranches in Bainville within the Bakken Oil Field.
Sen. Steve Daines has introduced legislation that would effectively sell-off more than 200 million acres of our public lands to the oil and gas industry. His “Supporting Made in America Energy Act” (bill S.460) hands over vast amounts of public lands, including sensitive areas, to oil and gas leasing. In Montana, it’s possible that over 18 million acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands and minerals would become susceptible to oil and gas drilling, blocking Montanans’ access to our public lands for recreation and agriculture while threatening the health of our wildlife, water, and clean air.
This bill disrespects the 70% of Montanans who support BLM policies that prioritize conservation of our lands equally with extraction. It seems that Sen. Daines’ primary constituents are oil and gas executives. His proposed legislation bends over backwards to please them while ignoring the conservation, agriculture, and public access concerns of everyday Montanans.
S.460 could lead to an unprecedented give-away of the lands where our ranchers graze livestock and many of us hunt, fish, hike, and camp. Daines wants BLM to offer every single acre of public lands that is considered open to leasing for each quarterly sale. In other words, all open lands under BLM Resource Management Plans would be eligible for leasing, risking our access to the lands that we, the public, own. And, this wholesale sell-off could drive down the costs of leases dramatically. That means we taxpayers would get less revenue from our resources while corporations gobble up cheap leases at fire sale prices.
