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CNN Live At Daybreak

Ranchers Get Tangled Up in Energy Debate

Aired July 09, 2001 - 08:36   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Ranchers, whether they like it or not, are tangled up in the national energy debate. There's a natural gas boom and a lot of drilling in Wyoming's Powder River Basin.

And, as CNN's Natalie Pawelski reports, some ranchers fear their land is in jeopardy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NATALIE PAWELSKI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Wyoming's Powder River Basin, cattle roam, antelope play and a natural gas boom is gathering steam. A decade ago there were only about 15 methane gas wells here. Now there are 10,000 with another 40,000 planned. For some landowners, that means big money.

JOHN DALY, LANDOWNER: It's a way of making a living and it looks pretty good.

PAWELSKI: But other ranchers say they are paying the price without reaping the profits.

ED SWARTZ, RANCHER: Just look at that. That's the deadest looking stuff you've ever seen.

PAWELSKI: Ed Swartz says floods of salty groundwater, a side effect of methane drilling in the basin, have ruined the creek he relies on for irrigation.

SWARTZ: We can be put out of business so that the methane producers can make a lot of money.

PAWELSKI (on camera): A lot of the ranches around here have been in the same families for a century or more. But because of homesteading laws of the 1800 and 1900s, a lot of the landowners don't own the mineral rights to their own property. That means some outsider gets to decide whether or not there will be drilling.

MICKEY STEWARD, COALBED METHANE COORDINATION COALITION: If you don't control your own mineral rights and you're the surface owner, sorry.

PAWELSKI (voice-over): Landowners can negotiate damage payments of a few hundred dollars per well but in the end they have no choice. They have to let the gas companies drill. Horse trainer and rancher Buck Brannaman was the inspiration for the book and movie "The Horse Whisperer." He says gas company trenches and ditches have made much of his land too dangerous for livestock.

BUCK BRANNAMAN, RANCH OWNER: Now there's miles of roads and there's hillsides that are just carved out with bulldozers and I don't even like to see my own place now.

PAWELSKI: The gas industry says it's learning as it goes.

TERRY DOBKINS, PENNACO ENERGY INC.: It is so important to the nation to be able to develop natural gas resources and do it in an environmentally responsible manner and that is what the industry is working hard to do up here.

PAWELSKI: The Powder River Basin has seen boom times before with coal and uranium. Each time the landscape has changed. But ranch life and the area's rural character have endured. Now there is another boom, perhaps the biggest yet, another test of tradition.

Natalie Pawelski, CNN, Campbell County, Wyoming.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: The war over is a cover story you'll see only in "Time" magazine. Joining me from Washington for this week's "Just In Time" segment is Matthew Cooper, deputy Washington bureau chief of "Time" magazine. Good morning, Matt.

MATTHEW COOPER, "TIME": Hey, good morning, Carol.

LIN: Well, in taking a look at Natalie Pawelski's piece there, I mean it raises an obvious question. Do you think this problem would be solved if the farmers were simply paid more for the minerals extracted out of their land?

COOPER: Probably. You know, it's part of, you know, a number of issues we look at in this week's "Time" magazine where the Bush, you know, these fights over mineral rights and forestry and land use in the west have been going on for years. But with the Bush administration taking a more aggressive approach towards extracting energy resources from the west and tilting the balance more in the favor of corporate and private interests over the environmental interests promoted by the Clinton administration, these wars have taken on a new life.

LIN: How much land does the federal government control in the west?

COOPER: Well, in some places it's an extraordinary percentage. In Arizona, for instance, if you count all the federal land and state government and tribal lands, only 12 percent of the state is in private hands. So it's really quite a large figure.

LIN: And when you talk about the struggle between federal and local control, there's a story out of Klamath Falls that really struck us. It centers on a sucker fish. COOPER: Well, that's right. This was one story we talked about in the magazine where if you, you know, it's basically a choice between preserving the life of this finish or farms. And there really wasn't, you know, a lot of times both environmentalists and industry people say, you know, that there's a happy balance to be found between, you know, development and preserving natural beauty. In this case there really wasn't much of choice. You either, you know, kept the river levels high to help the fish or you hurt the farmers. There wasn't much of a choice.

LIN: So what is the balance, then, did you find, between public good and public resources and private enterprise?

COOPER: Well, it's an on going dispute and it's one that's not likely to go away soon, you know? And it ranges from everything from snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park, which Interior Secretary Gale Norton inclined to allow, to things like logging and mineral development. It's an ongoing fight. It's been going or for years. It's going to keep going on.

LIN: And as it keeps going, do you see the landscape of protest changing, as well? Is there a backlash out there that we need to be worried about?

COOPER: Well, I think that passions run strong on both sides. You know, environmentalists are obviously perturbed by the Bush administration's more aggressive policies towards development. On the other hand, you know, folks in the west who favor, you know, extracting more from the land are also impassioned.

LIN: Well, most people are pretty impassioned about having electricity running their homes and gasoline in their cars. So this energy crisis that we're facing, and particularly out in the west, isn't that sort of fueling the Bush administration's position that there needs to be more access to this land?

COOPER: Well, absolutely. I mean the power shortages in California and the rising, at least until the last month or so, rising gas prices around the rest of the country have definitely, you know, given ammunition to the Bush administration's argument that they need to be more aggressive about pulling resources. But still, it's been very hard for the Bush administration to sell some of these proposals. For instance, their idea of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A lot of oil up there, but it's still a very unpopular thing and almost certain to not get passed by Congress.

LIN: All right, Matthew speaking of balance, how is it that you balance career your career at "Time" magazine with a stand-up comedy career? I couldn't believe it. I read this in your bio this morning. You were voted Funniest Man in Washington back in 1998?

COOPER: The bar was low, Carol.

LIN: I guess it's all a matter of perspective, isn't it?

COOPER: It's true. Well, you know, I'm keeping my day job at "Time," but, you know, we all have our weird hobbies I suppose as mid life crises go this is probably safer than going out and buying a Harley or something.

LIN: Yes, I'm trying to figure out where mid life is considering I'm planning on living to be 120.

COOPER: Well, there's that. You will.

LIN: Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

COOPER: Thanks, Carol.

LIN: Matthew Cooper, "Time" magazine.

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