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Show McKay blasts Interior coal lease "deal" Utah Congressman K. Gunn McKay Tuesday accused ac-cused Interior Department officials of "deliberately misleading" him and other oth-er members of the Interior Appropriations subcomm-mittee subcomm-mittee about an out-of-court settlement Interior had struck with an environmental envir-onmental interest group. He also called the settlement settle-ment "a sweetheart deal" saying it smacks of conflict con-flict of interest and jeopardizes jeopar-dizes future coal development. develop-ment. Rep. McKay lashed out at Assistant Secretary of Interior Guy Martin asserting asser-ting the proposed agreement agree-ment abrogates the department's de-partment's authority to grant "preference right" coal leases and gives the private National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) a kind of "right of first refusal" over who gets the leases. "I find the proposed agreement not only permits per-mits NRDC to review pen-ding pen-ding applications," McKay told Martin, "but that it establishes a formal executive function for NRDC to perform for the department in reviewing applications." Martin claimed in earlier testimony test-imony the agreement did not. "It would appear, Mr. Martin, that not only did you not report the true nature of the proposed out-of-court settlement to this committee, but that you may have deliberately mislead this committee as to the role of the NRDC in reviewing coal lease applications." ap-plications." McKay pointed out that the Interior, NRDC agreement agree-ment limits to 20 the number of preference coal lease applications the department de-partment can process and that only those applicants on which Interior and NRDC "mutually concur" would be granted leases. ' 'The Interior Department Depart-ment is surrendering the discretion vested by law with the Secretary of the Interior to a private interest inter-est group." McKay said, charging the pact gives NRDC "a formal executive execu-tive function" in Interior operation. "This not only is a fundamental change in federal policy, but it also might very well be a violation of the law," said McKay. McKay also accused Interior In-terior negotiators of excluding ex-cluding Utah Power and Light Company from agreement ag-reement talks and "systematically "sys-tematically denying repeated re-peated requests to be heard and to receive cop- ies of negotiating documents." docu-ments." The Salt Lake City based corporation is a third party to the suit. Rep. McKay, second-ranking second-ranking member of the subcommittee, also confronted con-fronted Interior witnesses with evidence of a possible pos-sible conflict of interest in the settlement. He revealed revea-led a deposition showing the government attorney who negotiated the settlement settle-ment had prior connections connect-ions and sympathies with the NRDC. Tuesday's confrontation centered on a recently announced settlement of a suit in which the NRDC sought to enjoin the Interior Inter-ior Department from granting gran-ting further preference right coal leases under its current Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). A District of Columbia Federal Fed-eral District Court ruled in favor of the NRDC finding the programmatic EIS inadequate. in-adequate. Rather than appealing ap-pealing the decision or halting the coal leasing program during completion complet-ion of a new EIS, Interior Inter-ior attorneys negotiated the agreement with NRDC. According to McKay the preference right leasing leas-ing procedure gives individuals indiv-iduals who discover coal on certain federal lands first rights to apply for leases to mine that coal. McKay claimed the 20 preference leases requiring requir-ing NRDC concurrence would be "the only new leases in the country for years" until the new EIS is completed. "This agreement puts our country's energy independence inde-pendence right in the hands of private interest environmentalists," he said. During heated questioning ques-tioning McKay also laid bare a possible conflict of interest involving James Moorman, a Justice Department De-partment attorney selected selec-ted by Interior officials to negotiate the agreement. McKay demonstrated, through close questioning of Interior Solicitor Loo M. Krulitz, that Moormnn had represented the Sierra Sier-ra Club Legal Defense Fund before taking his present job, and at that time was associutod professionally pro-fessionally on occasion with Bruce Terris, NRDC Counsel in the coul leasing suit. McKay summarized, "This smacks of a sweetheart sweet-heart deal, whether it is one or not." McKay also pressed for an explanation of Interior's Inter-ior's refusal to include Utah Power and Light Company in negotiations and asked Krulitz to make available to the subcommittee subcom-mittee the proposals and counterproposals lending to the final settlement. Rep. McKoy said a suit filed Monday by Utah Power ond Light would dissolve the Interior NRDC agreement. Utah Power and Light holds preference right leases on 18.000 acris in Utah |