Statement:
PETROLEUM COUNCIL Mr. Bean. Thank you, Senator. My name is Douglas Bean, execu tive director of the Idaho Petroleum Council, a division of the Rocky Mountain Oil and Gas Association. Our basic position is, that with 3.8 million acres in Idaho already under permanent wilderness classification, that's adequate, that's enough, and no more is necessary or needed. As one spokesman said Tuesday at the Boise hearing, you can't feed your family or educate your kids with a lot of beautiful sce nery. Industries, which recommend no more wilderness or very lim 647 ited additions, are the backbone of the State's economy, the produc ers, the creators of job opportunities, the sources of tax revenues, for Federal, State, and local governments. A point I want to stress is that my industry believes strongly in adequate wilderness and roadless areas. We recognize clearly there are lands which are sensitive and unique, which qualify for special management and protection. Yet, it is a proven fact that we can have both orderly develop ment of oil and gas resources and maintenance of fragile and sensi tive areas. That's been proven so many times in national forests, national wildlife refuges, and sanctuaries, it's just indisputable. The enourmous amount of acreage under lease or application in forests in region 4 of eastern and southern Idaho underscores in dustry's belief that there is high oil and gas potential in this area, in spite of the comments you heard from a political science profes sor, from Idaho State University, this morning trying to masquer ade as a geologist. In southwestern Wyoming and Northeastern Utah, just a few miles from Idaho's borders, a billion barrels of oil and several tril lion cubic feet of natural gas have been discovered in the Overthrust Belt just in the last 8 years. Discoveries in Idaho would seem to be only a matter of time, and we should be doing everything possible to encourage more explora tion. America cannot run without oil, and the more homegrown oil we can find, why, the safer and more secure the energy future of the country is. I submit that the areas — an area's subsurface resources are po tentially as important and valuable as the surface features. If min eral resources are unknown, then a major, critical component to sound decisionmaking is lacking. Oil and gas exploration and production are essentially a nonde structive use of land, while widespread preservation and lockup is an economically destructive nonuse of public lands. The most critical component, though, of any balanced wilderness legislation is language for the permanent release of lands deter mined to be unsuitable for wilderness classification. We strongly urge that the Idaho wilderness bill incorporate permanent release and legal sufficiency language. This is the only fair approach be cause since wilderness designation is permanent, nonwilderness designation also should be equally permanent. Thank you.
"Bean, Douglas", Idaho Wilderness Hearings, Center for Digital Inquiry and Learning (CDIL), University of Idaho Library, https://cdil.lib.uidaho.edu/wilderness-hearings/items/aug-11-1983-bean-douglas.html