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hunters, who vie for a once-in-a-lifetime state permit to shoot elk here, and devotees of the Philmont Scout Ranch, which is next to Valle Vidal and brings 3,000 Boy Scouts there to hike each year.
"Something is happening here," said Chris Wood, vice president for conservation at the advocacy group Trout Unlimited. "What we're seeing is the emergence of a powerful new voice in conservation. It's not your garden-variety environmental groups. It's hunters and anglers and outfitters and guides that are helping convince Democrats and Republicans alike of the need to protect these last places."
Steven Belinda, energy policy initiative manager at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, a sporting group, shot an elk with his bow in Valle Vidal two years ago and is now mobilizing hunters to oppose drilling here. Numbering between 1,500 and 2,700, the forest's elk herd is one of the largest in the state, and a ban on off-road vehicles allows hunters to pursue the animals without the disruptive background noise.
"While I was hunting, I didn't have to worry about anyone coming in on me or all-terrain vehicles," Belinda said. "It was incredible."
El Paso officials have not said whether they would go ahead with drilling in Valle Vidal, and a decision to allow energy exploration might well attract competitors. But spokesman Bruce Connery said El Paso would probably model any operation on the coal-bed methane project it operates on Ted Turner's Vermejo Park Ranch, adjacent to Valle Vidal. Turner, who bought the surface rights to the ranch, negotiated environmental restrictions that include quieter electric pumps, buried power lines and a limit on how many people can be on the land at the same time.
Connery called the Vermejo Park operation "one of the most ecologically friendly" development projects in the nation. "The Valle Vidal is obviously a very special place. If it is developed, it needs to be done carefully," he said.
But Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.), who signed on to Udall's bill late last month, said she could not reconcile drilling with Valle Vidal's value to the public for recreation.
"We're an energy-producing state. We're also a beautiful state," Wilson said. "The road network that serves the wellhead is not compatible with the wilderness experience."
In other parts of the West, newer residents who have arrived seeking a closer connection to nature have also voiced objections to oil and gas drilling. Sen. Thomas recently toured a housing development in Wyoming's Teton County where constituents challenged a pending gas lease sale on nearby forest land. Afterward, he questioned whether the government should allow drilling on most forested areas in the state.
"These neighbors don't want to have a gas well" nearby, Thomas said in an interview. "I understand that." He added that while public land can be used for several purposes, Americans are reacting negatively to the increased drive for energy out West. "With more development taking place, there's more pressure on the land," Thomas said.
Montana's Sen. Burns, who has long backed energy exploration on public land and just added $27 million to the Bureau of Land Management's permitting budget, recently put language in an Interior Department spending bill to block any new federal oil and gas leases on the Rocky Mountain Front. It would permanently retire leases that energy companies donate or sell to conservation groups. His proposal covers 356,000 acres, including a part of the Lewis and Clark National Forest in his state that the Blackfeet Indian Nation holds sacred.
In some cases, federal officials are trying to reconcile the administration's support for increased domestic energy production with intense local opposition to exploration.
Carson National Forest officials are working to develop by the end of the summer their first official plan to manage Valle Vidal before they decide whether to allow El Paso to begin exploration, and they received 54,028 public comments in three months. Only nine comments supported drilling for gas, and 51 percent of New Mexico residents who wrote in identified themselves as hunters and anglers.
"'Leave it like it is' - that's 95 percent of what we heard," said Kendall Clark, the acting forest supervisor. "We got comments about the natural quiet there. We got comments about the darkness."
El Paso sought the administration's aid in speeding the approval process in 2003, writing to the White House Task Force on Energy Project Streamlining about the Forest Service's slow pace. The task force's director, Robert W. Middleton, did write to regional officials within a matter of weeks to ask about the process, but Clark and others said they have not been
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