Giving Reins to the States Over Drilling

By proposing to end a century of federal control over oil and gas drilling and coal mining on government lands, Mitt Romney is making a bid for anti-Washington voters in key Western states while dangling the promise of a big reward to major campaign supporters from the energy industry.

Mr. Romney’s plan, which would turn over decision-making on drilling and mining to the states, echoes the “Drill, baby, drill” strategy that another Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, used to great effect in the 2008 campaign.

The federal government owns vast portions of states like New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Alaska. Under President Obama, officials in Washington have played a bigger role in drilling and mining decisions on federal lands in the states, and such involvement rankles many residents and energy executives, who prefer the usually lighter touch of local officials.

With gasoline prices again approaching $4 a gallon, Mr. Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, is also trying to merge energy and economic policy in a way that will make voters see increased energy production as a pocketbook issue. He said that his overall energy plan, which includes speedy approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada and new drilling off the coast of Virginia and the Carolinas, would help the country achieve energy independence and create three million drilling and manufacturing jobs.

“I’m going to change the regulatory and permitting process,” Mr. Romney said Thursday at a rally in Hobbs, N.M., in the giant Permian Basin oil fields, where companies are eager to begin drilling on millions of acres of federal lands. “Sometimes I have the impression that the whole regulatory attitude of the administration is trying to stop oil and gas and coal — that they don’t want those sources, that instead they want to get those things so expensive and so rare that wind and solar become highly cost-effective and efficient.”

Giving states control over the energy resources on millions of acres of federal lands would be a radical shift from decades of policies under both Democratic and Republican presidents, dating all the way to Theodore Roosevelt, who first set aside vast tracts of territory to preserve wildlife. Since then, the federal government has tried to balance exploitation of mineral resources with other uses like recreation and environmental protection.