BLM rejects ‘right to refuse consent’ and notification of surface owners.

Landowners over federal oil and gas deposits don’t deserve the same rights as landowners over federal coal, according to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The agency rejected calls for a federal law giving surface owners the right to refuse consent to drilling for federal oil and gas, in a report to Congress released in December 2006.

WORC had urged BLM to support amendments to the Mineral Leasing Act giving surface owners the right to refuse consent to development before federal oil and gas is leased, as is done for private surface over federal coal. The BLM report waived off this recommendation. “A consent provision is not recommended,” BLM said, “given the lesser intensity of oil and gas development” compared to coal stripmining.

In the report, required by the 2005 Energy Policy Act, BLM also rejected requests by WORC and other groups that it directly notify surface owners about decisions concerning leasing and development of federally-owned oil and gas under their land. Instead, BLM will increase general public notice of its leasing activities, through brochures, information on websites, and publication of legal notices in local papers.