Utah energy exploration lease sale deal reached

By Ayesha Rascoe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Interior Department has reached an agreement with environmental groups over the controversial sale of energy exploration leases for 100,000 acres of land in Utah scheduled for Friday.

The lease sale will proceed as planned, but the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management will not finalize any sales of leases on 80 parcels of environmentally sensitive land for 30 days, giving a judge time to issue a ruling on the lease sales. The 80 parcels of land include areas adjacent to national parks.

Environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club, filed a lawsuit to block the Utah lease sale earlier this week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

In their complaint, the groups charged that opening the proposed areas to oil and gas development would lower air quality at several Utah national parks and that the Bureau of Land Management did not thoroughly complete federally mandated analysis of environmental impacts of the leases.

Sharon Buccino, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement it is possible that the challenged leases will be deemed unlawful.

"Anyone buying them at Friday's sale will be proceeding at their peril," Buccino said.

A spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management declined to discuss the litigation.

Several lawmakers have also criticized the Utah lease sales. Eight Senators sent a letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne in November asking to postpone the lease sale.

"I am concerned that an outgoing administration is rushing to complete an oil and gas lease fire-sale before they understand how it could harm the experience millions of visitors enjoy every year at some of our nation's premier public parks," Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, said in a statement in November.

The environmental groups who file the complaint urged President George W. Bush on Friday to take the contested areas in Utah off the auction block. They said the Bush administration should not force President-elect Barack Obama to address this issue.

John Podesta, the co-chair of Obama's transition team, said last month that Obama would likely reverse Bush's executive order allowing drilling in sensitive lands in Utah.

Experts say even if Obama does not issue executive orders overturning Bush's policy, his administration could choose not to issue leases in certain areas or issue leases with restrictions.

(Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Christian Wiessner)