[cdt-l] oil/gas drilling

[cdt-l@mailman.backcountry.net (soren jespersen)]

Just thought I'd pass on this little tidbit from the Salt Lake Tribune.  
Gale Norton could be responsible for some major changes in the CDT (and 
surrounding environs) in the coming years...


WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration will weigh opening some off-limits 
areas of the Rockies to oil and gas drilling as part of a sweeping review of 
untapped energy resources, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said Monday.
    A 1999 study by the National Petroleum Council, an industry advisory 
group to the government, said about 10 percent of the country's total 
reserves of natural gas lay beneath the Rockies but that 40 percent of the 
deposits are off-limits to drilling.
    In 1997, the U.S. Forest Service banned drilling in areas of the Lewis 
and Clark National Forest that is part of the Overthrust Belt -- a 
geological formation in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and northern Utah rich in 
oil and gas deposits.
    "We want to ensure that energy production is taking place in those areas 
where the environment can most tolerate that," Norton said. "One of the 
areas that would be studied . . . would be the Overthrust Belt."


How bout that "where the environment can most tolerate that"?

-Soren
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