By Cory Hatch/Jackson Hole Daily

Officials with the governor’s office say an unconfirmed agreement between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency could strip forecasting of air-quality effects from a proposed plan to drill on 44,700 acres in the Wyoming Range.

Eliminating air-quality modeling could streamline the approval process for the controversial Wyoming Range project, which is opposed by Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal and U.S. Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, as well as numerous sportsmen and conservation groups.

Ryan Lance, deputy chief of staff for Freudenthal, said he heard about the unreleased agreement between U.S. Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment Mark Rey and officials in the EPA in early November.

Lance said he requested the document from Rey’s office but was denied.

“They said they were uncomfortable sharing it with me at this time,” he said.

Officials with Bridger-Teton National Forest and the regional Forest Service office in Odgen, Utah, could not be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon.

Lance said the agreement would eliminate the need for quantitative air-quality modeling, not just for the 44,700 acres of contested leases in the Wyoming Range, but for energy-development projects across the country.

While Lance said eliminating air-quality modeling might be appropriate for regional plans such as the Pinedale Resource Management Plan, he said air-quality analysis is necessary for individual projects.

“In a circumstance like the Wyoming Range or the Anticline, when you have a specific defined area and a specific number of wells, where you have a specific background in terms of existing air-quality issues, when you have a specific topography … when you have those specific sorts of things, we think that air modeling is justified,” he said. “That’s especially true in the Wyoming Range, where you already have specific problems.”

Those problems include several ozone warnings last winter that officials attributed to emissions from oil and gas development. “I’m left to worry about very important places like the Wyoming Range, where the science and the scientists have all suggested that this is the right thing to do,” Lance said.

Bridger-Teton National Forest officials committed to performing air-quality modeling of potential development of the Wyoming Range leases earlier this year. Conservation groups and the public greeted the move with widespread approval.

Lisa McGee, national forest and parks program director for the Wyoming Outdoor Council, said the latest move by Rey is likely an attempt to push through oil and gas leases before the Bush administration leaves office in January.

“We’re not sure why Mark Rey needs to micromanage these project-level agency affairs when the Forest Service appears to be doing the right thing,” she said. “We’re really supportive of where we thought the Forest Service was going. The local and regional Forest Service has really listened to the public. [Rey is] a political appointee who appears to be derailing the best efforts of his own staff.”

McGee said the agreement would also hamper the efforts of the Environmental Protection Agency to “advocate for the best kind of analysis.”

Lance called Rey’s decision to go forward with such an agreement without consulting the states “unconscionable.”

“Who does the burden fall on to take care of the mess created by poor leasing decisions?” he said. “It’s the state [department of environmental quality]. We’re left holding the bag.”

The Wyoming Outdoor Council, The Wilderness Society and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition protested several lease sales starting in December 2005, saying the Bureau of Land Management ignored possible adverse effects of energy development on the Canada lynx and air quality that should have been considered in an environmental analysis for the 44,720 acres. The Canada lynx is protected under the Endangered Species Act.

In May 2006, the Interior Board of Land Appeals denied a Bureau of Land Management motion to dismiss the case and, in June 2006, ruled that the BLM’s analysis was inadequate, in part because of air-quality concerns.

Earlier this year, Freudenthal called Forest Service officials to task for allowing Stanley Energy undo influence during the development of an environmental study to determine whether to allow oil and gas drilling on the Wyoming Range land. Some environmental groups say Rey has close ties with Stanley Energy’s attorneys.