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Show Cannon Says: Conoco Will Drill Its Well PANGUITCH "Conoco is going to drill," Congressman Chris Cannon said confidently to the approximately 30 people at a Pan-guitch Pan-guitch town meeting on Saturday night. Cannon said that only two hours after Conoco's initial announcement of its intent to drill, the Interior Department had a response "So they obviously had prepared beforehand," before-hand," he said. The DOI's two-page document is "basically saying, 'we're going to do everything in our power to keep you from drilling, but on the other hand if your lease runs out, we'll extend your lease.'" Cannon said there are "two great lies of the environmentalists on this," (1.) that Conoco did nothing for 10 year and is coming forward now just to extort the government and that (2.) Conoco can't drill because they have to go over federal roads. Cannon said the company had invested millions on its leaseholds. Commissioner Louise Liston said that the county had talked to the local BLM people who confirmed con-firmed that there is access through the state section which is adjacent to the county road and there is no authority that can keep the county from maintaining its road. The White House told Cannon Tuesday that President Clinton will not be visiting the grand Staircase-Escalante Staircase-Escalante National Monument In a Jan. 27 letter, Cannon had invited the president to view the monument he had created on Sept. 18, 1996. The reason given for declining Cannon's invitation was "tremendous "tremen-dous demands on the President that would not give him the opportunity" oppor-tunity" "If he is going to put Southern Utah in economic jeopardy through his arrogant land grab, he needs to visit the area and understand the concerns of the people who live there," Cannon responded. "Combined with the fact that the monument announcement occurred in Arizona, there is a clear indication indica-tion that the President cares little about the over 10,000 local residents resi-dents who must now live with the consequences of his decision. "I'm not even sure the President has ever seen this area," Cannon said. |
