Interior Secretary Sued for Revoking Utah Leases

Three drilling companies and officials in three Utah counties have filed lawsuits over Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's decision to revoke oil and gas leases auctioned off during President George W. Bush's administration.

Carbon, Duchesne and Uintah counties filed suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, saying that they could lose thousands or millions of dollars in oil-and-gas royalties from Salazar's decision to rescind 77 of the leases.

Lawyers for Questar Exploration & Production Co., Impact Energy Resources LLC and Peak Royalty Holdings LLC of Heber City also filed a separate lawsuit that day.

Salazar in February voided the leases auctioned off in December because they were too close to Utah's redrock parks, he said. But lawyers for the drillers contend Salazar was misled about the proximity of the parcels to Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Dinosaur National Monument.

"We believe the secretary was supplied with misinformation," said Robert S. Thompson, a Denver lawyer who represents the drillers. He said none of the parcels in the lawsuit was closer than 15.5 miles to a national park and that those parcels were separated from Arches National Park by a road.

Questar also claimed that every one of the yanked parcels was adjacent to an existing and valid lease parcel. The company disputed environmentalists' claims that the 77 parcels would encroach on wild areas of Utah or spoil views from the national parks.

"The withdrawn lease parcels had been open for leasing for the last 30 years, and many of these parcels contained rights of way for roads, transmission lines, and pipelines," said Jay B. Neese, a Questar executive vice president.

The disputed leases already were put on hold by another federal lawsuit filed months ago in Washington, D.C., by conservation groups. Steve Bloch, a staff lawyer for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said he expected the latest lawsuits from the drillers and counties to be thrown out.