PNP comment: Obama administration is finally seeing the writing-on-the-wall? — Editor Liz Bowen

By Paul Foy

Associated Press

Oil drilling in the Red Wash area near Vernal Utah.

Deseret News archives

SALT LAKE CITY — U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday announced the approval of a major natural gas drilling project in Utah that the Obama administration says will support more than 4,000 jobs during its development while safeguarding critical wildlife habitat and air quality.

During an appearance outside Salt Lake City, Salazar said Texas-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp. would be allowed to develop up to 3,675 new gas wells over the next decade in eastern Utah.

“It will help power the American economy,” Salazar said.

The move comes at a time when the Obama administration is under fire from critics who say his energy plan falls short and is hurting job growth and the economy with undue opposition to new drilling. The administration says the attacks are political rhetoric.

Natural gas production in the U.S. grew by more than 7 percent in 2011, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The agency says that’s the largest year-to-year increase in history, surpassing a previous production record set in 1973.

One of the five top producers of natural gas in the U.S., Anadarko is set to work in an area about 170 miles southeast of Salt Lake City near the Colorado border that has thousands of other wells. It’s taking over some existing drill pads, with plans to use directional drilling to reach farther for gas pockets.

Anadarko agreed not to drill along the high cliffs of the White River, the last major free-flowing river on the Colorado Plateau. It also agreed to buy 640 acres of private land along the river for conservation, said Steve Bloch, staff attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, which worked with the Interior Department, along with the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, to reduce the project’s impact.

Salazar and U.S. Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey praised Anadarko for working to protect the environment.

“Anadarko is one of those companies that get it,” Abbey said.

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http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765574499/Salazar-approves-Utah-gas-wells.html