Energy and land use Page: 26 of 220
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By June 1980, the initial phases of the
NFS and BLM studies were completed and
a large proportion of the areas originally
under study were determined to be nonwil-
derness, thus opening those lands to miner-
al development. Congress is debating the
Alaskan lands bills, and BLM has modified
its unsuitability criteria for coal develop-
ment deleting the prime farmland and re-
claimability criteria because of potential
difficulties in application. However, a large
number of acres are still under study or
have been recommended for wilderness des-
ignation. The amount of land presently
withdrawn from development, excluding
the acreage covered by the Alaskan Lands
Bill now under debate, is summarized in
Table 2.1. The 282 million acres indicated
in the table represent 37 percent of the na-
tion’s public lands. The simplistic assump-
tion that 37 percent of the federally con-
trolled resources would thus be rendered
unavailable would lead to estimates that
about 15 percent of the nation’s coal, 19
percent to 30 percent of the oil, 15 percent
of the uranium, and 22 percent of the geo-
thermal fields are locked up on withdrawn
lands.
RARE II
In January of 1979, NFS recommended
that 15.5 million of the 62 million acres of
RARE II lands be designated as wilderness,
while 10.5 million acres were to be studied
further for possible wilderness designation
by 1985, and 36 million acres were released
for non-wilderness use.20 Areas recom-
mended for wilderness are closed to energy
resource exploration and extraction unless
those activities exist under some prior right.
The 10.5 million acres of further study
areas are open to oil and gas exploration,
but no resource development is permitted
until studies are completed. The impact of
these withdrawals on energy resource avail-
ability was of particular concern in the oil
and gas rich Rocky Mountain Overthrust
Belt. However, though reserves of 1.5 to
8.8 million barrels of oil and 6 billion to
51.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are
estimated to occur under RARE II lands in
the area, 95 percent of the area is still open
for resource exploration and extraction.20
BLM Wilderness Area
By mid-1979, BLM had completed its in-
itial inventory of more than 175 million
Table 2.1
Federal Acreage Withdrawn from Mineral Uses as of June 1, 1980
(millions of acres)
Government facilities and installations not open to public entry 34.4°
National park service lands 25.1b
Fish and wildlife refuges 30.3b
Wilderness areas in national forests 12.CP
Wild and scenic rivers in national forests 0.3cd
RARE II lands recommended for designation as wilderness 15.5°
RARE II lands under further study 10.5°
BLM potential wilderness study areas 57.0s
1978 designation of Alaskan national monuments 56.0°
20-year withdrawal of Alaskan lands 40.0s
TOTAL 282.0
“Source: Federal Register, Vol. 45, No. 98, Monday, May 19, 1980.
bas of June 30, 1975.
Source: U.S. DOI, Bureau of Land Management, Public Land Statistics 1976, U.S. GPO, Washing-
ton, D.C. (no date).
cAs of Sept. 30, 1977.
Source: USDA, Forest Service, Land Areas of the National Forest System as of September 30, 1977,
File 1380 (5411), February, 1978.
dAdditional wild and scenic river acerage can be found outside of national forest lands.
sSee text.
13
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Energy and land use, report, December 1, 1981; Illinois. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1067706/m1/26/?q=1966+yearbook+north+texas+state+university: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.