American Oil and Gas Reporter - December 2015 - 105

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and the growth of new military systems
into Iran" inevitably would result in increasing "a real, clear threat to America
as well as the Western world, all the way
to (Iran) becoming a nuclear power."
Going back to the 1983 attack on the
U.S. embassy and Marine headquarters
in Lebanon through Sept. 11, 2001, Ettinger suggested, "Every time the United

States was top heavy with overtures
toward the Muslim world, this is the time
the United States was hit catastrophically
by Islamic terrorism.
"The issue is not engagement versus
confrontation," he insisted. "No appeasement will change those rogue regimes."
Ettinger borrowed from American
football to illustrate his point, observing

that one must advance the ball into the
other team's end zone to score a touchdown. "The choice is not to combat or
not combat terrorism," he maintained.
"The choice is to combat them in their
territory or combat them on the U.S.
mainland.
"You are getting closer to your own
end zone," Ettinger warned.
r

Liaison Committee

Smart Strategy Key To Winning Battle

By Del Torkelson

NEW ORLEANS-"Indirect tactics,
efficiently applied, are as inexhaustible
as Heaven and Earth, unending as the
flow of rivers and streams; like the sun
and moon, they end but to begin anew;
like the four seasons, they pass away to
return once more."
Although that statement originates with
the battlefield philosophy of ancient Chinese
general Sun Tzu, it perhaps also could
encapsulate the Obama administration's
treatment of the U.S. oil and gas industry.
That constituted a broader theme during
the Liaison Committee of Cooperating
Oil & Gas Association's Nov. 9 meeting,
held in conjunction with the Independent
Petroleum Association of America's annual
convention. At one point during Liaison's
proceedings, Chairman Mike Elyea, senior
vice president of Burk Royalty Co. in
Wichita Falls, Tx., illustrated the inverse
relationship between federal involvement
and oil and gas development. "Note all
the drilling activity in the Permian Basin,"
he urged. "But look at a map; it stops on
BLM land."
That prompted IPAA Senior Vice President of Government Relations and Political
Affairs Dan Naatz to describe the cumulative
effect of the federal government's myriad
indirect attacks on oil and gas development.
"It is death by a thousand cuts," he characterized. "It is an especially interesting
battle on federal land because regulators
do not flat-out say no. They simply make
it so hard that companies leave. Then the
agencies and environmentalists say they
did not push companies off. The industry
merely decided not to play there."
Some Success
Nevertheless, oil and gas companies
and their advocates continue to push
back, and enjoyed some breakthroughs
this autumn. One of them Naatz cited
was the preliminary injunction The U.S.
District Court for the District of Wyoming
placed on the standards for hydraulic

fracturing operations on federal and Indian
lands by the Bureau of Land Management
while the regulation is litigated.
"The federal government probably
will appeal, but success on that is a pretty
high bar," Naatz related. "We are assuming
the injunction will stay in place throughout
the rest of the case."
Liaison participants also cheered Judge
Robert Junell of the U.S. District Court
for the Western District of Texas, who
sided with the Permian Basin Petroleum
Association and co-litigants to overturn
the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's decision
to classify the lesser prairie chicken
(LPC) as threatened under the Endangered
Species Act. IPAA Director of Government Relations Samantha McDonald, observed, "The judge overturned the listing
decision on the premise that USFWS did
not adequately review state conservation
policies. The Department of Justice is
seeking a reconsideration."
When Liaison Secretary Edward Cross,
president of the Kansas Independent Oil
& Gas Association, inquired about the
likelihood that USFWS would simply
restart the listing process with an eye toward reaching the same outcome, McDonald predicted the service and antidevelopment groups would instead concentrate on the legal battle. After all, she
said, if USFWS did restart the listing determination, the decision would not be
complete until the next presidential ad-

ministration. "I do not think that is going
to happen," she said.
Despite the court's ruling, Cross indicated, some producers are chafing under
LPC candidate conservation agreements
(CCAs) and candidate conservation agreements with assurances (CCAAs). "The
mitigation measures in the CCAs and
CCAAs are expensive for smaller producers," he described. "Now that the LPC is
not listed, some companies would like to
pull out of those, but a lack of voluntary
conservation measures gives USFWS more
ammunition to list it. It is a Catch-22, I
guess."
New Mexico Oil & Gas Association
President Steve Henke confirmed that his
members with operations in the Permian
Basin were delighted at the ruling, but
were unsure about its actual implications.
"USFWS is evaluating what that ruling
means in terms of practical measures on
the ground, and it really has not said if it
is going to change its practices with regard
to honoring the CCAs, or how it affects
Section 7 consultations," he reported.
"While it is a victory in the courts, as a
practical matter, we are still in limbo."
Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association President Mike Terry noted
that western Oklahoma had seen a significant increase in LPC populations since
the drought had abated. McDonald concurred that the bird's numbers had increased 25 percent in the past year, and
Liaison Committee of Cooperating Oil & Gas Association
Chairman Mike Elyea (right),
senior vice president of Burk
Royalty Co., conducts the
Liaison Committee meeting
alongside Liaison Secretary
Edward Cross, president of
the Kansas Independent Oil
& Gas Association. During
the meeting, Elyea predicted
that the Internal Revenue
Service would act to undermine family limited partnerships despite the classification's statutory basis.

DECEMBER 2015 105

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