News

 The Interior Department is seeking to close hundreds of thousands of acres of land in Wyoming to traditional and renewable energy development, a plan that would cut crucial natural resource development off at the knees (POLITICO Pro, subscription).

What’s going on: Though the Bureau of Land Management’s plan, released Thursday, scales back from previous iterations the acreage recommended for conservation, it still considerably “throttles back how much of the federally administered area’s 3.6 million acres is in play for different forms of energy development.”

• The final announcement, part of the BLM’s proposed Resource Management Plan for the Rock Springs Field Office, is tantamount to “pushing Wyoming off an economic cliff with nothing more than a tattered parachute,” said John Barrasso (R-WY), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. “This plan isn’t designed to manage Wyoming’s natural resources. It is designed to suffocate them. … [It] directly jeopardizes Wyoming’s economy and our way of life.”

What it would do: If approved, the blueprint would replace its 27-year-old predecessor document and prohibit drilling on nearly 1.08 million acres—almost twice the number currently off-limits to new oil leases.

• It would “also [exclude] 494,350 acres from wind and solar power development and [close] 536,018 acres for geothermal power projects.”

Why it’s important: The plan could reduce economic activity in Wyoming’s oil and gas sector by some $907 million each year and cost the state nearly 3,000 jobs, according to estimates by several energy groups (Cowboy State Daily).

The NAM says: “This latest move by the Interior Department undermines U.S. energy security by needlessly restricting access to available domestic sources of critical natural resources as part of an all-of-the-above energy future,” said NAM Director of Energy and Resources Policy Michael Davin. “We urge the agency to reexamine and revise its plan.”