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Members of New Mexico's congressional delegation introduced a bill to permanently withdraw federal lands from mineral leasing within ten miles of Chaco Culture National Historic Park. The Chaco Cultural Heritage Protection Act, led by Senator Ben Ray Luján, would permanently prohibit leasing of federal oil, gas, and minerals within the ten-mile buffer zone. The landscape surrounding the park is of cultural and historical significance to several Tribes and Pueblos.
The announcement follows the release last week of an environmental assessment conducted by the Bureau of Land Management of the potential impacts of a 20-year mineral withdrawal that was announced by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland last November and formally proposed by the Bureau of Land Management in January of this year. The assessment found that about 47 wells would be blocked by the mineral withdrawal, and that oil and gas production would be reduced by only about 2.5 percent.
Both the administrative 20-year mineral withdrawal and the legislative permanent withdrawal would apply only to federal lands, in an area with multiple different landownership types occurring in a checkerboard pattern. The state of New Mexico has temporarily banned oil and gas drilling on state land within 12 miles of the park. That ban, put in place through an executive order by State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard in 2019, expires in December 2023, though Garcia Richard is expected to pursue a renewal.
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I've never seen an issue receive this much support, support from the outside as well as from all the tribes. In this (political) climate, that's quite an accomplishment.”
